


The Beauty of the Beast

by CzarnaArcher



Series: Beauty of the Beast fan-timeline [1]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1800481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CzarnaArcher/pseuds/CzarnaArcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after the season 2 finale. Megatron captures June and have a chat with her, while William Fowler is retrieving two fallen autobots: Wheeljack and Optimus Prime; under Decepticons' very olfactory receptors. Will he make it, is Optimus still alive? Will June survive her "chat" with Megatron? Will there be any purple griffins? Not a smut, but the rating may go up.</p><p>Originally posed on November 17th 2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beauty of the Beast

**The Beauty of the Beast.**

 

 

**Warnings:** this is not a smut, no lemons, no PWP, but it has an odd pairing, some angst, a bit of tension, a bit of ogling, and one big mech and one small human female locked in the mech’s room.

 

 _“Would you love a Monster-man, could you understand beauty of the beast?”_ – Lordi _Would you love a Monster-man._

 

Timing: post season’s 2 finale.

 

Rating: T with possibility of M.

 

Pairing: Megatron and June Darby.

 

Disclaimer: Transformers Prime © Hasbro. Story’s plot and Gavin © me.

 

* * *

**Part 1 – The Darkest Hour.**

June Darby felt her blood freezing. The base was destroyed, and they all were inside. Her son was there. It was the scariest moment of her life. She felt like fainting, but she couldn’t. She wanted to vomit, but her stomach was empty. Frankly, she felt gut punched, as her body reacted to high stress level, but her mind couldn’t comprehend what just happened. She knew, she saw, but it was beyond her to simply admit that she accepted the knowledge of the Autobot base destruction. And that dark, scary shape of Decepticon warship just looming over the smoking ruins of once majestic mesa. The place where her only child was.

She felt someone shaking her arm; it was Agent Fowler with worried look on his face. “June? Can you hear me?”

Nurse Darby blinked once, and then looked at ex-ranger. “Yes. It’s just…”

“I know. I received message from Ratchet just before the base was destroyed. Prime ordered evacuation and Ratchet left as the last one.” June looked at Fowler with fear in her eyes. “The kids are safe, though we’ve lost all contact with them, it is safer this way because the ‘Cons can’t find them now. We must now wait for them to make contact, most probably by e-mail, because it is harder to track, especially that Soundwave probably doesn’t know all their addresses, and I made sure they have few.” Fowler continued. “Soundwave can’t track something he doesn’t know exist, and the ‘Bots will jam their signals, so internet is their only way of communication right now. But we have to wait few days until they’re sure it is safe enough.”

June seemed to sink into the chopper seat, but then she stiffened suddenly. “What about Optimus?” She gave Fowler terrified look. “You said that left as the last one, what with Optimus?”

Fowler only stared back for few seconds, and then he blinked once. “He must have left behind to destroy Ground Bridge’s Console.”

“He must’ve been caught in the explosion; I didn’t saw him left the base!” June said out loud what Fowler thought. “Bill, he must still be there!”

“Yeah, just like the ‘Cons. You saw Megatron and Starcream fly there. Until they fly away I can’t do anything.” Fowler glanced at the ruins of mesa. “I will contact my superiors. If he’s still alive and they won’t find him, we may have a chance to retrieve him.”

“Will they agree?”

“For now ‘Bots are our best chance to defeat Megatron. Hate to say that, but all we can do is stall. Generals know that, if Optimus is alive, we will get him. If not, we will get his corpse. From what I know, they will need the Matrix to appoint the new Prime.”

At this point June’s adrenaline levels started to drop and all the tension that kept her composed faded away. Tears started to flow down her face. First she was scared of Jack, and then upon learning that he should be safe with Arcee (and she trusted her) she found out that Optimus was dead or dying right now, and they couldn’t do anything about that. “He’s though soldier, June” Fowler tried to cheer the nurse up “If anyone could survive this, it is him. Remember when we told you about Megatron surviving Space Bridge explosion? This is nothing in comparison. I’m sure that while beaten into a metallic pulp, he’s still with us.” June eyed Fowler with serious expression. “I hope he will survive long enough for you to get to him.” He will. Megatron survived everything, so Prime will too. Now, the town was evacuated, but I’m sure you didn’t pack anything and just left for the base?” June nodded once, suddenly tired beyond imagination. All the emotions fear, adrenaline and sheer intensity of recent events taking toll on her. “Look, they’re leaving.” Fowler pointed at two figures that left the debris behind and flew to Nemesis. “I will call generals to report latest events and request some help to dig Prime out. With little luck we’ll get the CH-47*), in the mean time I will get you to your home. Jasper was evacuated, but I can see that you left everything and headed to the base. You need to pack what you need, eat something and do whatever else you need to. I’ll give you one hour, hour and a half top. Can you make it?” June sighed “Yes, I should make it.” All that time they were flying toward Jasper, familiar blocks passing below them. Fowler landed the chopper, and June moved to leave. “Pack some of Jack stuff too. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it when you’ll meet in few days.” Fowler gave her slight smile and left. June looked at her house. She had an hour, perhaps some more to pack, change, eat, maybe take a shower before she would leave for who know how long. Maybe even forever.

June Darby, head of ER nurses in Jasper Hospital entered her house home. She needed to prioritise. She started with making herself two sandwiches and taking them with her as she started to packing. She knew that it had to be small baggage, but also contain all she would need. Few changes of clothes, underwear, change of shoes for every weather condition, warm jacket and few light clothes, everything to be prepared for anything that may happen. She managed to stuff it all into large, tourist backpack. Then she entered her son room. She knew that she had to take his laptop (just in case he had something in there that was of value), and then she packed similar set as she did with her own clothes. She ignored few Playboys she found while digging through his closet. After all packing was done; she set backpacks on the floor next to her front doors.

June checked her watch; she still had almost forty five minutes, which meant she had time to eat. She already ate her sandwiches, but she needed something warm. She quickly took pizza leftover and stuffed in into the microwave. In the mean time she prepared herself mug of coffee. She needed some energy. Microwave gave a soft ping and June took the pizza. She hated to eat old pizza, but it was quick and caloric, and she needed calories now.

Pizza and coffee gave her some warmth and energy. She still had the time, so now was the time for a shower and change of clothes. June headed to the bathroom taking fresh set of clothes with her. Nothing too fancy. Comfy jeans, tank top and sweater, pair of sneakers and of course fresh undies.

June set the shower and entered the cabin; a little relax before she will have to return to the hell that her life turned into.

* * *

*)Boeing CH-47 Chinook - a dual rotor helicopter capable of lifting heavy weights.

* * *

**Part 2 – The Evening Gloaming.**

The Sun begun to set over the Nevada Desert. The tower of New Kaon stood proudly, its black walls gleamed in the blood red light of setting sun. Normally lively town of Jasper now abandoned lay silently nearby.

Megatron stood at the top of his new stronghold and fed his crimson optics with sheer beauty of the sunset. Vanishing star painted clouds with unimaginable colours, strands of gold, amber red-orange, crimson and purple danced on cloud floating lazily above the horizon. Suddenly, as the sun started to vanish below the horizon, the most wonderful phenomenon happened. Megatron heard of it, but never before he had the chance to observe it with his own optics. The golden-red disc dipped lower and suddenly a green flare flashed just above it. It lasted for just mere seconds, but it was beautiful. Emerald “puff” just as the sun vanished – a perfect start of the night in Megatron’s opinion. One that was instantly ruined. Megatron flinched upon hearing Starcream’s shriek; one could count on the noisy seeker to ruin any moment of tranquillity. Silver Decepticon growled, night started to settle, but the saturated colours still stained the skies.

***

Megatron sauntered inside just to see Starscream pouring out the pains of his spark to Soundwave who – to trained eye – looked like he was ready to repeatedly smash his head against nearest wall. He usually looked like that whenever Starscream was giving his tirades. Actually, everyone looked like that during Starscream toots. It helped when the seeker had anything of importance to say. His voice wasn’t half as bad if Scream spoke quietly and slow. But when he was frantic, it was pure torture.

“Why in the name of the Allspark, Starcream, are you causing all that fuss?” Megatron’s angry voice instantly silenced the seeker.

The seeker jumped and spun to see his Master. “Why, Lord Megatron, I was… just… Soundwave detected human activity in the town.”

“Those are probably last of the inhabitants, as I understand human military evacuated the town just before our arrival.” Megatron raised an optic brow, this could be something trivial, but it also could be something important.

“Master, it was a military helicopter. The same that participated in the battle. It flew straight to the town, to the area of small buildings…” Starcream voice was low and steady.

“I’m listening.”

“Upon our research on Autobot’s human companions Soundwave created their profiles based on social network they all had account in. It was very rich source of information, and it also granted us some knowledge about their closest relatives.”

“Your point Starscream?” This could been important, but Megatron lacked patience for his SIC even in the best of circumstances.

“The neighbourhood the helicopter landed is the same that Jack Darby dwelled.”

Megatron cocked his head, this was getting more interesting. “You think he returned to his house?”

“No Master. We didn’t spotted Arcee anywhere in vicinity, I don’t believe that in current situation she would leave his side.”

“Who do you think it was?”

Starscream smirked slightly. “Jack lived with his mother. Soundwave just profiled her.”

At this moment Soundwave who was silently standing in the background moved his long arm, stretched one thin digit and pressed touchpad on access station. Purple, hexagonal displayer showed photo and some data. Stascream continued: “June Darby is a single carrier. There is no information about her ex-mate, other than that they’re divorced – it’s a way that mates that are in legal relationship split – and that her ex-mate does not contact them in any way.

She is head nurse – it’s a type of medical assistance – in local medical facility’s emergency room; and she studies to be a fully trained medic. Upon research we found that it is not unheard of a medic assistance to become a full medic in human society. Her personal files in the medical facility shows that she is experienced and highly valued. We do not know when she was introduced to the Autobots, but she is familiar with them.”

Megatron was looking at the photo of June, he remembered her from the time when he visited Autobot’s base during Unicron Crisis. He had to admit that young Jack bore a lot of resemblance to his carrier, though there were some differences, originating from his sire without a doubt.

June herself was an attractive human femme. He could tell that she was attractive, he always wondered how come Cybertronians could tell that in humans (and other way around for that matter), while it wasn’t that easy with other sentient races. Learning about Unicron solved that mystery.

June Darby shared her colours with her son, both had black hair and dark blue eyes, both were slender and had delicate face features. Megatron held no doubt upon learning about June’s occupation, that Jack’s character originated from hers, because it was highly doubtful that it came from irresponsible sire who left his mate and creation.

“Tell me, Starscream, how all of this is of any value to us?”

“She may know where the Autobots departed to, Lord Megatron.”

“Good thinking, Starscream. Let us retrieve her so…“

But the silver tyrant didn’t had a chance to finish the sentence, as strong, tenor cut in. “You’re not going anywhere, my Liege.”

Everyone looked at the door, where Knockout stood with his servos on his hips.

“Knockout…” Megatron’s voice carried clear warning, he wouldn’t have any of this, no one ordered him around.

“Master, you’re forgetting, that you’re in need of medical attention” Knockout wouldn’t have any of this either. He was a medic for Primus’ sake, so he decided that if Stasrceam could act as proper SIC, he could act as proper CMO.

“What nonsense are you talking about, Knockout?” Megatron gave a look of confusion. What medical attention? He wasn’t wounded, he didn’t leak, he could transform, he could fly, he was fine.

“Your arm, my Liege” Knockout pointed at Megatron’s right arm, it was missing entire forearm. “I’ve patched you, but it’s nothing else than a field repair. Surely, Lord Megatron, you’re not thinking about leaving it this way?”

“What way?”

“This way. With nothing but patch on a stump.” Knockout indicated wounded arm with his servo. “This isn’t exactly healthy, or practical. Especially that this patch may let go anytime and it will start to sparking and leaking again.”

Megatron glanced at his right arm. Many times he lost a limb, most of the times he brought it to the medical bay on his own, not having an arm wasn’t as unusual occurrence to him as one could think.

“My Lord, it won’t take long and you’ll be back to war mongering.” Knockout continued as Megatron vented a Cybertronian equivalent of sigh.

“Fine, sooner or later I would have to deal with this anyway, so let’s get over with it. Starsream!”

The mech in question jumped upon hearing his name. “Yes, Master?”

“Fetch me this June Darby, so I may interrogate her after our Good Doctor will finish his ordeals with my servo.”

“Yes Master. Where you want me to drop her?” Starscream’s voice was so smooth that it could serve as machine lubricant.

“Bring her to my personal quarters on Nemesis, she may be more responsive there than in the brig.”

“As you wish, Master.” With the last bow Starcream left the chamber and could be heard calling for Ground Vehicons to accompany him just in case. Megatron shook his head, on one servo Starscream overreacted; one human femme shouldn’t cause him any trouble at all. On the other hand, human military could appear and interrupt him, allowing the femme to escape.

“Soundwave, you’re in charge.” With this Lord Megatron of Tarn, Gladiator of Kaon, the Slag Maker left his tower of New Kaon and headed for Knockout’s infirmary.

* * *

Author's note.

Megatron of Tarn – according to various sources G1 Megatron was born/created in Tarn, then he worked in Kaon’s mines to finally end in gladiatorial arena, where he changed his previous designation of D-16 to Megatron (or Megatronus) as it fitted him better.

Since Transformers Prime (the cartoon) doesn’t state anything about Megatron’s place of origin, I will fill all missing details with what I can gather from G1 (this includes everything, not only Megatron). I will also add some of my own ideas to make the story a bit more dramatic in certain areas.

* * *

**Part 3 – The Darkness Falls.**

June emerged from her shower cabin just as tensed as she was before. The only difference was that she was clean and her hair dripped with water. Wrapping herself in fluffy towel she looked at the clock and almost jumped. She had to move faster, Fowler should be there soon.

***

Fowler risked quick glance at the Decepticon Tower, luckily no one noticed them yet. He was a little late, because General Bryce wanted to know every little detail. Finally he got two CH-47 and some equipment. He held no delusions, Prime was probably dead, and he had no news about Wheeljack.

He split his team; one chopper flew to where Jackhammer crashed in hope of finding Wheeljack alive, if wounded. He took the second machine to find Optimus, or whatever left of him. He knew that even if the Prime himself didn’t make it, he still held the Matrix. As he understood, the Matrix was essential to pinpoint and elect a new Prime, and ‘Bots needed Prime to lead them. Who would it be, that was another question, one that he personally would like to avoid. Fowler felt his skin crawl, they hadn’t much time, and ‘Con’s could spot them at any minute.

“Sir, we have him!” - came loud cry.

Fowler climbed closer and almost gasped. There, in the middle of burned and twisted metal was a single arm. Something was sending cascade of sparks, and he could smell burned rubber.

“What’s his status?” That was the only logical question that he could muster. He needed to stay professional, this was his job. He had to be focused.

“Hard to say, sir.” The same voice replied. “It’s sparking, so there’s a chance that he’s alive. But we will know more when we’ll dig him out.”

Fowler looked at the dark tower again, they had to move fast. “Dig him out, but hurry; I don’t know how long we have.”

Fowler checked his watch, and cursed under his breath, June will have to wait, she should be safe as long as she stayed inside and didn’t draw any attention.

“Sir, we have to cut all that junk, it’s so mangled…”

“Then cut it, that’s why you pack those pneumatic cutters in the first place.” William Fowler looked as his technicians worked quickly and without a word, the only noise was their equipment easily cutting their way to the fallen Prime.

***

Jackhammer was a mess and Wheeljack couldn’t move an inch. The pain told him that he was wounded, and the moist sensation that he was leaking his energon. Aside from that, his ship was a scrapheap material. Damned Starscream, it had to be him, who else could pull that stunt? Maybe Soundwave with help of Laserbeak? Megatron was mighty, but too slow flier. Dreadwing was missing and Wheeljack wondered what happened to that mech.

Suddenly he heard some noise coming from the outside and braced himself for an attack. Attack that never came. Shortly after he heard small voices. Human voices. He didn’t know if that was good, so he stayed silent for the moment. Then some awful noise hit his audio receptors and something metallic hit the ship’s floor.

“Sir, he’s alive!” Then he heard few pair of heavy duty boots hitting the floor. A tiny human came into his line of vision. It was a human male, small but looking fit.

“Sir?” The human addressed him, but Wheeljack didn’t replied. “I was sent by Agent Fowler to aid you.”

“Fowler?” Wheeljack eyed the human weirdly.

“Yes, he is in the remnants of mesa to retrieve Optimus Prime.”

“Prime’s probably dead” was all the white mech said.

“We don’t know, sir. But agent Fowler is now in the ruins of Autobot base. We are here to help you. We have equipment to free you.”

“Free me? What is going on?” Wheeljack was at loss. He was in pain, and tired, but he didn’t felt in need of help.

“Yes, during your crash, your pilot seat had to be ripped of off its place and crushed you between itself and flight controls. We need to asset your injuries and fix what is there to fix.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Snarled the Wrecker. He knew humans were weak, how could they help him?

“We have cutting equipment, and we have helicopter to transport you into safe place. Agent Fowler has the same equipment to get the Prime out.”

Wheeljack growled with sadness. “He’s dead, or dying, what difference does it make?”

“Sir, with all due respect, even if Optimus Prime is in very bad condition, we do have a full set of spare parts, courtesy of Nemesis Prime and Silas. And if he is dead, I believe Agent Fowler mentioned something about not allowing Megatron to lay his paws on the Matrix of Leadership; and giving it to Ratchet.”

Wheeljack growled; that was logical. “How bad is it?” – Ex-wrecker asked the small human soldier.

“Well, sir, it could be worse. A lot worse in fact.”

“Would you just tell me?”

“Erm, sure, sir. Ah, one of your wings, or winglets? It’s almost torn off, it hangs on few wires, I think the joint gave. Also you have a lot of cut metal there, you’re leaking and something is sparking.”

Wheeljack felt like purging his tanks. His doorwing was almost torn off, that meant some serious pain, but if he didn’t felt it meant that his receptors were off line, and that in turn meant that the neural lines that went to it were out. Joint wasn't the problem, but the neural connections were. If he was lucky it would be easy to fix, if he wasn’t, he would lose that doorwing.

He snapped back to reality when he heard whine of metal being pulled with great force, something roared and gridded, then the pain came. It was his doorwing, now he could feel it. Good and bad news at the same time – he thought. Bad because now he was in more pain than before. Good because pain meant that his receptors and neural net were more or less intact, he wouldn’t lose his dooriwng. Well, at least not yet.

He actually yelled when something hit his back, then it pulled and the moist sticky sensation appeared. It was the air reaching his wounds, open wounds. Humans managed to pool the seat of him.

The small human vanished for a moment, and then came back slightly paler than before. “Eh, sir?”

“Yeah, tiny?” Wheenljack did his best not to moan in pain.

“Do you want to know?”

“Sure, tiny, shoot.”

The human gulped. ”Your back is in better condition than we thought.”

“Then why are you so pale?”

The human blushed. “How to say that? I don’t like the sight of blood. Any blood. Be that human, or yours. And there’s a lot of it on your back.”

“It probably looks worse than it is. I’m more worried how do you plan to take me out of this wreck?”

At this moment a second human came into view. This one was female, but dressed in BDU’s and with military gear on. “Easy, we will cut the roof open. It’s not like there’s a lot of it left anyway.”

Wheeljack vented loudly, after the chair was pulled off of him, venting was a lot easier. “Just watch the grenades. “

“We found them sir, we will use them to booby trap the wreck” The woman smiled nastily. “Any ‘Con that will try to search through your ship will set it off.”

Wheeljack's optics flashed wide open and he focused on the woman. “I like your way of thinking.” He smiled.

“Glad to hear that, sir. Can you walk?”

Wheeljack did his best to rise, but his legs wouldn’t listen to him. Then everything started to fade away. Last thing he heard was a voice of that human female “He’s losing conscious, hurry up!”

***

June Darby pulled pair of jeans, tank top and sneakers on. Her hair was still wet so she kept a towel on her shoulders to absorb the water. She needed her hair dryer. She started to search for it, but couldn’t find anything in the dark. The only thing that she managed to achieve was some noise. So she decided to risk it and switch the light on, just for the moment, just to find that damned dryer and then turn it back off. She knew that someone could see the light in her windows, but on the other side who would look? Decepticons were probably busy with plotting in their new fancy tower, too busy to look if someone was still in Jasper. Especially that she lived on the opposite end of the town. They probably had patrols in case of an Autobot attack, but she didn’t hear anything, so if she was quick, no one would even know she was there. Beside, without that damn light she could spend entire night in here, making noise and not finding anything. At this moment she regretted making mess during packing and not preparing her dryer for quick use. But she was in a hurry, and what was done was done, no whining or regrets would change it. And Fowler could be here any moment, she had to move faster.

* * *

Author's note.

Humans that are helping Wheeljack are one of Fowler’s teams and are accustomed to Autobots, so gigantic robots don’t intimidate them much. They title Wheeljack ‘sir’ out of respect. Fowler’s teams are good soldiers and nice people, but most of all, they’re specialists in their fields and each of them went through Ranger training. Fowler chose them himself. Those of you who are willing to watch some movies that don’t contain gigantic robots, but do include some US military and is more about talking than shooting, may want to watch “Basic” with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta (he won’t dance in here). Really good movie.

* * *

**Part 4 – Dark of the Night.**

The streets were empty; all windows dark and entire town was unnaturally quiet. A whirl of greens and soft turquoise appeared in the thin air, it glowed for a moment without doing anything special, when suddenly five dark figures stepped out. Two of them were silver and three were dark purple. One of them was more slender than the others, and acted as a leader.

Starscream took a very good look around. He saw nothing special. His four Vehicons looked rather relaxed, bored even, but he was tensed. He just re-established his position as Second in Command and was very intent on not screwing this up. He would take no chances, that why he took troops with him. He wanted soldiers, but instead he was given these pathetic excuses for Decepticons.

He had B3-NN-00, also known as Ben, one that came in after his departure, a whiny example of malcontency. Then it was K3-NN-YY, who called himself Kenny, and was so shy, that he actually blushed when he was given an order. He had the newbie, a freshly released flyer with silver armour (newest batch had no chance to be painted yet), M1-K3-Y0, who – Starscream was ready to bet – would soon be called Mike or Mikey. And, of course, because life would be too easy otherwise; he had to end up with the biggest perv on the ship – Gavin, who leaked oral lubricants over everything that had at least femme like shape, including human females. And they were to retrieve a human female. Well, at least Gavin would be focused on this mission.

They were sent to direct location of Darby’s house, but Starscream didn’t know which one was it. It would seem that he had to split his team and search each house on the street. He didn’t like it at all. If that fleshy femme would notice them she would have a chance to escape and Megatron wouldn’t be pleased.

They would have to be very careful and keep a close look on anything that moved, just in case. And then a miracle happened, at least for Starscream. A light flickered in one of the houses. It could only mean one thing: someone was in. And to the seeker’s best knowledge, there was only one human in that part of the town at that particular time: June Darby. How silly of her to give herself away like that, but Starscream wasn’t the one to complain. She probably never thought that someone would be looking for her, perhaps she needed to see something and that’s why she turned the lights on? It didn’t mattered, Decepticon’s SIC quietly mentioned to his troops. Soundwave did marvellous job by sending them almost at the front lawn of the house. They only needed to reach and grab their target. If Starscream weren’t sneaking right now, he would laugh. This was just so easy. He signalled Vehicons to surround the house, and they tiptoed around looking like a bunch of pranksters.

***

June dove into a closet, huffed and re-emerged with frustration clearly visible on her pretty, delicate face. Where was that damn hair dryer? Her hair would of course dry on its own, but she was starting to feel cold because of its wetness. She opened a drawer in another closet and starts to dig, various items clanging loudly. Nothing. Then it hit her. How could she forget? She packed the damn thing! It was in her backpack. How silly of her.

June turned the lights down and walked to the front door, where she laid both backpacks. She only managed to shake her head with smile on her face when the door burst in and gigantic palm grabbed her as she was reaching for her backpack. She managed to take glimpse of a window, where single red visor peaked inside her house. She squealed with panic and tried to hit long, metallic digits, to no avail, her captor probably didn’t noticed.

June screamed with all her might, but this didn’t work either. She opened her dark blue eyes to see that she was held by purple ground based Vehicon. Somehow, though how he managed without having any proper face was a mystery, he managed to look lecherous. His three digits wrapped themselves around her lightly enough for her to breathe, but tightly enough that she would not slip away, the strong hand risen her to his visor. June felt his optics, or optic, because she couldn’t tell; lingering on her. She cringed; she just knew that he would lick his lips if he had them. That was downright creepy. Decepticons abducting human women to molest them? She would never in her life thought of something like that.

Then the Decepticon that held her looked pass her and spoke in a voice that June herd before. “This is her alright, Commander Starscream. She was definitely with the smaller one called Miko.”

And June knew who that was. It was Gavin, the pervy Vehicon. But that didn’t concern her, Miko told her that he was harmless, that he was all look and talk. What caused her dread was the one the Vehicon addressed to. Starscream was here. She heard enough about him from the kids and the ‘Bots. She never saw him, but her imagination showed her gigantic, marred with scars and heavy looking monster.

“Show her to me.” His voice was low, rough with slight tint of croak to it.

She felt herself moving as Gavin shoved her toward his superior. She hoped that Starscream wouldn’t touch her. That she could remain in Gavin’s hand. At least Gavin wasn’t brutal or sadistic. He just liked to strip women with his eyes… er… optics… no, visor.

Terrified woman opened her eyes and looked at Starscream, who was standing with his hands behind his back. That was something she didn’t expect and her eyes grew at the sight. Stasrceam wasn’t anything she thought he would be. He was tall, not as tall as Optimus or Megatron, but taller than Bumblebee. He was slender, his silhouette elegant and almost aristocratic. He was hunched a little, but that somehow didn’t ruin the entire image. Two pairs of something that looked like wings protruded from his back, the Decepticon Commander held them proudly. Broad chest narrowed into slim waist and into graceful looking hips. He stood with his legs slightly astride, like a soldier, but the impression was ruined by the fact, that he seemed to have high heels. June freely admitted to herself, that she envied him those legs. True, her owns were shapely, long and drew attention, but his were just amazing.

Then her gaze returned up, to his face: long, narrow, grey. His chin ended with what looked like metallic goatee, two red optics focused on her, their tint deep and intense with blazing white pupils. Then between those eyes a narrow, red spike or horn protruded straight up., very much like Arcee’s. On every side of his face were two vents, which completed his look. June gulped. Starscream was beautiful, but that only made him scarier. Should he be ugly, it would be easier to accept that he was nothing but bastard. But his good look only made his cruelty less bearable.

Her musing were roughly disturbed by his voice, he spoke gently with slight murmur. “I am Air Commander Starscream and you will address me as such. Obey, do not make any escape attempts, they will fail, cooperate and your chances of survival will improve.”

June finally found her voice. “What do you want from me?”

Starscream smiled. “Ah, so you do speak. Good. I am taking you to Nemesis, where our Lord Megatron will have a little chat with you. Let us not stall.” He raised a single claw to his audio receptor. “Soundwave, send me a ground bridge”.

Green swirl appeared immediately, group entered it calmly not noticing helicopter heading in their general direction.

* * *

**Part 5 – Moonlight Shadow.**

The remains of mesa lit with pale light of the moon looked like entrance to hell itself, and in a way they were, at least to some. Hid in deep shadow dual rotor helicopter rested quietly, waiting for its crew to finish their business here. In the remains of the mesa, using night vision equipment small team of humans moved around something bigger.

Special agent William Fowler answered a call from his second team. The news was both good and bad. Wheeljack was alive, he managed to crash land and none of his grenades exploded in the process. The bad thing though was that the white, red and green wrecker crashed, which meant that he was wounded (despite what people might though, crash landings always ended up with someone wounded). At some point he lost his conscious, but they said that it was better that way, and proceeded to report his wounds. Fowler agreed that it was indeed better for Wheeljack to remain out cold for some time.

A loud yell disturbed his train of thoughts and Fowler turned around. His people managed to pull all the debris off of Optimus Prime. Fowler came closer to fallen titan and gasped. It didn’t look good. Even if it looked worse than it was (common occurrence in his life), Prime was still in very bad shape. His pain-job was basically non-existent, paint was burned to the point where it begun to fall off his armour leaving only soot covered metal. The armour itself wasn’t in better condition either: dented, torn, crushed and punctured in multiple places. Limbs sprawled in all directions (they found him only because one of them were still visible from under the rubble), joints twisted, both shins mangled, left thigh broken, right punctured. Fowler though that if Prime was a human, he would be dead already just because of those injures, there would be massive bleeding and the left thigh angle indicated that it would be open fracture where bone would pierce the skin. But this wasn’t a human, this was gigantic alien robot. A robot with opened abdomen, the metal of his belly was torn so all the cables and tubes were visible. Fowler could see the T-cog and something that looked like a small tank, half transparent with some dark liquid inside.

Primes chest plates weren’t much better. The glass broke and wasn’t there anymore, metal underneath it was dented, few pieces of the armour was disfigured to the point they showed insides. From where he stood Fowler could see that there was something bright inside, but couldn’t tell what exactly. The right arm lay above the head, its palm nailed to the floor and junk beneath, the forearm attached by two, literally two thin wires. The shoulder torn and leaking slightly. The left arm was somehow the less damaged part, even the paint was still visible, but it meant almost nothing compared to the state of the rest or the body.

Oprimus Prime’s head was in almost good shape. Prime wore his face mask; he probably shot it close in the last moment, perhaps it shut itself close automatically. The mask was burned, not too badly, but the soot was there, it was also dented, so there was a chance that it will have to be removed by force. Ear fins were missing, only stubs showed where they’ve been. The crest dented back, few small cracks were visible along its length. Exhaust pipes of Prime’s alt mode were beyond recognition, rear view mirrors missing, and smell of burned rubber indicated that his tires were lost forever. What was the weirdest thing for Fowler, was that Prime almost didn’t bled. Sure, energon was flammable (very flammable) so it was a good thing, but if there was no energon on the outside, that could mean only one thing: internal haemorrhage. That was a bad thing for any species.

Next to the Prime lay the Star Saber, unbroken, untouched by the fire, shining brightly, almost like it was mocking them. Fowler did the only thing that came to his mind at that moment, and the only thing he could actually do. He swore, a long, ugly, complicated and sincere curse. Then he looked at the Megatron’s tower and growled loudly about Megtaron, his origins and the ways his mother (or whatever they called them on Cybertron) earned for living. Few of his men whistled with appreciation. That snapped him back to reality. They had to act now, time was short and he would bet his life savings that Megatron would keep an eye on this place. He was surprised that with all the uproar they made they weren’t attacked already. Perhaps Megatron and his company were busy with other things? Fowler wasn’t the one to complain, but he wouldn’t risk more than necessary and that meant that they had to bust a move.

His people were moving quickly around broken alien warrior, they were securing his injuries so they wouldn’t get worse from movement and transport. Their work was brisk, their hands steady, every one of their movement confident; none of them were wasting time, they were just like well-tuned machine, like an ant hive. An average looking man approached agent Fowler with a tablet in hand. “Sir, would you like to hear our report about Optimus Prime’s condition?” “Sure, why not” answered the special agent not bothering to look at the man.

“He is alive, but his readings are weak and getting weaker with every passing minute. Our doctor and mechanics are giving him four to five hours, but to survive he needs to receive medical assistance as fast as possible, each passing hour decrease his chances. You saw his external injuries. His internals are damaged, he suffer from several minor internal bleedings, though it’s not half as bad as we expected. We assume that it was his external armour that took the most of the force. Some of his neural net is ruptured and his optic sensors are destroyed by high temperature and pressure. Same goes with his audio receptors, they gave to the pressure and noise.”

Fowler sighed and finally looked at his soldier. “So, you’re saying that we’re dealing with a guy who found himself in the centre of the hell itself, at the still point of destruction and managed to barely survive? “ At the shy nod Fowler threw his hands. “Care to tell me something I don’t know? Son! I’ve been here when it happened, I saw with my own two eyes. You better tell me what you’re going to do now?”

The soldier cleared his throat, that was the pleasure of working with Fowler – he thought – you got yelled at for so much as breathing, and the man was usually thinking about bigger picture, usually big enough to be visible from the satellite. “Sir, our technicians, doctors and mechanics are now securing the Prime, so we could safely move him to our secured base, where they will asset his injuries and try to fix them with the use of Nemesis Prime parts. With little luck they will fit.”

“Contact Ratchet” came in calm reply.

“Who?” The soldier blinked. He worked with Fowler for some time, and he even met the Autobots briefly, but he only knew Prime and Arcee by their names. Prime, because it was the leader; and Arcee because she was the only female (or rather femme). The rest of Team Prime was just alien faces without names for him.

“Ratchet! It’s their medic, he can work miracles.” Fowler took out simple black note book and pen, and then wrote something in very tiny letters. “Here, it’s an e-mail address we provided him with. Just after the Unicron incident we decided that in case of emergency everyone would check their e-mail address every 15 minutes. He’ll answer immediately and you’ll be able to transport him to Prime’s aid.”

“Yes sir.” The soldier saluted and started walking away. “I’m going to pick up a friend from the town, you’re in charge, son, and take Prime to safety, he’s a good soldier.” Fowler took his night vision goggles off and threw them to the soldier who caught them with ease. “Yes sir.”

Fowler started his helicopter engines and took off heading toward Jasper as his men finished strapping Optimus Prime to oversized stretcher.

* * *

**Part 6 – Dark side of the Moon.**

Special Agent William Fowler saw four tall figures. From the distance they were tiny, but he knew that they were huge. He couldn’t see what they were doing, but neither of them noticed him, and they simply walked into Ground Bridge vortex. They had to be Decepticons, but what they were doing in that part of the… JUNE!

Fowler couldn’t fly faster, and even if he could it was pointless. Whatever they did, they were gone, but perhaps they just checked the place where he landed? Maybe they only wanted to investigate if the helicopter was still there? He didn’t believe in any of this. The only reason they could been there was June. But what they could possibly want from her? She didn’t know where ‘Bot’s went. Hell, he didn’t know. Even they didn’t know where all the other went. Only ‘Bot that knew was Ratchet – who sent them into their destinations; and Optimus who witnessed the process. Perhaps Megatron wanted a hostage? Maybe he wanted to lure Jack out? The old warmonger had his business with Jack Darby unfinished after all. But he probably had one with Miko as well, she did kill Hardshell. And with Raf for hacking the Demostecles and stealing the Iacon Data Base.

***

The helicopter landed on empty street and Fowler jumped out of it with all the grace of bag of potatoes. The he spotted the broken door and the tell-tale footsteps on the front loan, everything was clear. He managed to get to Optimus, but he lost June. The ex-ranger kicked the post box pole, and stomped to the helicopter. He couldn’t do much here. June was with Decepticons now; any rescue mission had to wait until he had some heavy duty back-up. Preferably Bulkhead, Arcee and Bumblebee; the dream team that once rescued him. He shivered at the thought that poor June would be tortured like he was. He hoped that Megatron was a gentleman, or was it gentlemech, and spare the poor woman who went through a lot more in just one day that she went through her entire life. Fowler though of June as a true friend and didn’t want anything to happened to her, especially that she was a civilian and never asked for all of this. And how in Uncle Sam’s top hat was he supposed to break the news to Jack? At this very moment, as the black chopper lifted itself from the ground, Fowler sighed: “Hang on June.”

***

June only saw Depecticon warship once in her lifetime, when it was destroying Autobot base. And even then it was from the distance. Now she viewed it from the inside, and she had to admit that it looked just as grim as from the outside.

Outside the Nemesis seemed threatening, predatory even. Its interiors were dark, depressing and simply cold. Only colour came from the lights, but it wasn’t much. Every corridor looked the same, like some kind of gigantic metallic maze. Passageways were spacious but walls had sharp edges. This ship indeed looked like vessel of evil tyrant.

Her musings were disturbed, when she picked her son’s name in quiet chat that her captors had. She knew that Jack was rather famous – or more like infamous – amongst Decepticons, but this conversation was about something that happened recently. June, being controlling mother that she was; couldn’t waste such an opportunity to learn about her son’s activities, actions and behaviour. The source of these informations was but a detail.

***

Wheeljack slowly regained consciousness, he felt tired, so tired that he didn’t even powered up his optics. Everything felt weird, but he couldn’t remember why. There was pain, but he was familiar with pain, many times he woke with it as a reminder of what he did previous cycle.

There was also this strange sensation of motion, gentle swinging, like he was floating. But why was he floating? Why he was in pain? He focused on the pain, if he could locate the pain he could remember why it hurt. After few clicks he decided that everything hurt, but his back and left doorwing were the worst.

Why?

He focused for a short moment and then his optics snapped open and powered at the same moment: Decepticons! Then he looked around and almost screamed. No wonder he had that feeling, he was floating. In. The. Air. He wanted to move, but he felt that he was strapped with his back and doorwings up. What in the Pit was going on? He remembered crashing; the short but intense pain, then humans came to free him. But he passed out and now he awoke to this.

“Hey, you’re awake, sir.” The voice was tiny but strong, Wheeljack pulled his optic brows together. He knew that voice, it was the soldier from before. “Tiny, what is going on? Where am I? Where are you?”

“Look the other way, sir” came the reply. Wheeljack move his head and saw the soldier from before. The little guy sat on something and was strapped to thick, black rope. “As to your other questions, sir, we’re retrieving from Jasper. We strapped you to this impromptu stretcher, because you lost your conscious and you’re too big to just lay you inside of the helicopter. Maybe if you could move freely, you could fit somehow, but not in this state.”

Wheeljack frowned, why everything here had to be so small? The soldier smiled apolegticly. “We’re hanging below CH-47, its dual rotor helicopter, powerful enough to lift you. We secured your winglet and back, so it would hold until we can work on it.”

“It’s a doorwing, Tiny… what is your name anyway?” Wheeljack reliased, that he was calling this young soldier ‘Tiny’ all the time. The human was too polite to say anything, and ex-wrecker could tell that he was a rookie.

“Corporal Jenkins, sir.” Was all he heard as a reply and Wheeljack recognised the rank.

“Why are you here and do you know Prime’s status?” Wheeljack observed Jenkins’s face, the young man smiled slightly.

“We, and by that I mean our commanding officer that you met before, decided that it would be good to have someone here in case you’d woke. She decided that it should be me, since we talked before”

Wheeljack smiled this time. “In other words because you’re a rookie and they didn’t want to be down here?”

Jenkings blushed. “Yes, that too. Optimus Prime is alive, but badly injured. His helicopter is slightly behind us.” Wheeljack optics widened in surprise. Prime was alive? Jenkins noticed that and continued. “From what I know, it’s bad and he has to receive medical treatment as fast as possible.”

“I doubt Ratchet can get to him fast enough…” Blank look on Jenkins’ face indicated that he didn’t know who Ratchet was. “Ratchet, he’s our medic…” Wheeljack suddenly rested his head on the stretcher.

“Sir? We have our own medics, they may not be your medic, but they should be able to secure Oprimus Prime’s long enough for your medic to arrive. They have most of M.E.C.H’s. research.”

Wheeljack vented slowly, everything was just so overwhelming. “How far to that secure place?”

“Not far. It is not permanent, just to put you guys to working order, but it’s a location that Megatron will never think about. Almost right under his nose. Have you ever heard of Area 51, sir?” Wheeljack gave Jenkins long stare before he closed his optics and drifted away again.

***

Optimus Prime lay on his stretcher facing bottom side of helicopter that was transporting him. Straps securing his body placed in odd fashion only to not injure him further. His shins hanging freely, but secured with braces. His open abdomen covered with plastic foil. His right arm placed in additional brace. One could see that his still form had been handled with care even if he had to be transported this way.

Optimus’s optics were broken, but the left one sparkled and quiet static noise escaped his vocaliser, then the sparkling stopped and slight glow died down, not unlike an unconscious man would slightly open his eyes, moan and then return to his previous state.

Deep inside Prime’s chest Matrix of Leadership worked hard to keep him alive. Its power was great and no one, safe for Primus himself, knew its true potential, but even the Matrix wasn’t almighty. It pushed more power into Optimus’s systems, although his optic and audio receptors were broken, the secondary receptors of his vehicle mode were relatively intact and Matrix could gather readings about what was going on around its carrier. It’s pre-programmed by Primus himself; imperatives and routines initiated necessary actions. Primary objective: keep the Prime’s system on-line long enough for his allies to aid him.

* * *

**Part 7 – Fear of the Dark.**

Special Agent William Fowler took a deep breath. This was inevitable, sooner or later he would have to make that call and send that e-mail. Of course steps would be takes to recover June, but before that…

He wasn’t afraid of his superiors, he didn’t do anything wrong, June was kidnapped from her own house when she was taking most basic things she would need. Fact that he was late to pick her up from there was a detail. No Decepticon should be there, because what would they look for? The only answer was that they looked for June, so they would kidnap her anyway, only firstly they would kill Fowler. No, he was afraid of Jack’s reaction, Ratchet’s, and the rest of them. Because he failed to protect member of their team. Part of their little family. The only family that ‘Bot’s have left, because that’s what they were – a family. Prime was sage father, he himself was paranoid military uncle, June was overprotective and loving mother, Arcee was eldest sister, Ratchet was grumpy uncle with tendency to put his foot to his mouth at times, Bulkhead was middle son that is clumsy but love everyone, Bumblebee and Smokescreen would be two younger brothers with ‘Bee being the responsible one and Smokes’ being the prankster. And the children were just themselves.

And now ‘Con had June, and who knows what they were doing to her? Fowler decided that it’s better to be done with it. He waited a minute before he got the answer: “General Brice here.”

“Special Agent William Fowler. I have the report.” There was silence on the other end of the line, then General Bryce spoke again: “Go on.”

“Prime and Wheeljack are alive, but Prime is in bad condition. We’re taking them to safe haven. Others were able to departure before the base was destroyed.”

“Where are they?”

“Sir, I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and even if I would, this line isn’t safe. „Fowler fought the urge to look over his shoulder.

“Of course it is.” General’s voice was somewhat surprised. In theory this was secured channel, so why wouldn’t it be safe?

“Sir, no line is safe from Soundwave” Another silent moment passed.

“I see.” – came the reply. – “Anything else?”

Fowler gulped silently, his face expressed total misery. Luckily no one was there to see it.

“Yes sir, Nurse June Darby has been kidnapped by Decepticons.”

“A CIVILIAN!” Brice was known to be rather calm person, but Fowler knew that he can be put off by certain things. A civilian kidnapped by alien robots was one of them.

“Yes sir, you know about her…”

“She is that boy’s mother. What in the nine circles of hell happened?” Bryce’ voice was still upset.

“I have left her in her house so she could pack her most important belongings, her papers, some clothes, and her son’s stuff. I myself left to organise Prime’s and Wheeljack’s recovery, in the mean time she was to pack herself, eat something, perhaps take a shower, but all that while keeping low profile just in case. By low profile we understood no cell phone use, no regular phone use, no going outside. There shouldn’t be any ‘Cons in vicinity, it was just some suburban area. They had to target her.”

Brice gave a long sight. “I see. Continue with escorting rescue parties to their destination, then we will think of means of recovering Ms Darby.”

“Sir, there is possibility that they will torture her.” Fowler shrugged, he remembered all too well his session with Starscream, and he was an ex-military. Would June survive such treatment?

“I know, but there is nothing we can do at the moment. We will act, but not stupidly.” And the connection ended. Fowler knew that General Brice was right, but that didn’t made him feel any better.

Now it was time to send message to Jack. After what became known as “The Unicron Incident” everyone agreed that they should have emergency plan, just in case something happened and they would have to split. No one took that possibility as something that may actually happen, but they agreed that better safe than sorry. And so every ‘Bot and human had three different e-mail addresses (aside of their official ones), on three different servers, in three different countries, seemingly unrelated. The idea behind that solution was that even Soundwave can’t monitor entire internet traffic at all the times. So chances that he would find all those addresses and connect them with each other were more than slim. Each ‘Bot would check their accounts every 15 minutes each (it wouldn’t be much of a problem for them) and children would do the same every 30 minutes. Thanks to this idea they could now safely communicate. Their chatter would disappear in vast ocean of other messages. Anonymity was a blessing. And now this system gave Fowler chance to inform the boy that his mother was taken by enemy that tried to destroy humankind. Oh Joy – thought Fowler.

The e-mail was short, Fowler typed with just one hand as his chopper didn’t had any auto-pilot.

***

On the other side of the line, Jack was just checking his e-mails, when one message popped up. It was from Fowler.

“Jack, your mother was taken by D-cons, I couldn’t reach her on time. We will be taking her back, but we must have plan first. Wheeljack will be fine. Prime is alive, but barely. I’ll keep in touch. Fowler.”

Jack gasped and read the message again. He became visibly paler than mere second ago, his heart rate sped up and his skin became cold. Arcee who was checking her own mail while sitting next to her partner looked at him with concern.

“Jack, what is it?”

Jack shook his head and took a deep breath to keep him from squeaking. “They have my mother. Decepticons have my mother. We must get to her!” The young man was staring at his phone.

Arcee’s optics grew large. That wasn’t good. Normally she would agree with Jack, that there was no time. But they were far from normal at the moment. She needed to think like Optimus would, now that they were all on their own she had to take the role of the leader. She needed to be responsible and logical.

“Jack, we’re all alone, we have no back up and we’re far away from Nemesis. Even if we would go now, that’s still very far away.”

“Fowler said that they will be getting her back, but need plan first…” Jack only gripped his phone tighter.

“Show me this e-mail.” She took the phone from Jack, it looked almost microscopic in her hand, but she read the message. She slightly slumped with mild relief, but then tensed back again and returned him his phone. “Fowler’s right. Throwing oneself in Megatron’s embrace won’t help your mother. What she needs now is organised rescue. Megatron won’t do her any harm for now, he will try to use her to get to us. She is safe as long as Megatron needs her.”

Jack closed his phone with shaky hands and gave Arcee scared look. “So, what now?”

“Now we wait for Fowler’s further instructions. Then we will notify the others. And then we will mount a rescue mission. Preferably snatch and run. But for now, we wait.” Jack nodded and lowered his head. This was torture for Arcee, to watch as her partner suffer silently and not be able to do anything with it. “June is safe for now, Megatron needs her alive and preferably in good shape, she won’t have any luxurious conditions, but she will be fine.”

Jack sighed, he knew Arcee was right, they couldn’t do anything on themselves, even if they would manage, they would fail and Megatron would get them as well. But that was his mother and not being able to do anything was agonising. It was just as when they lost Optimus, only the difference was that Oprimus was even in his Orion mentality, a large mech. His mother was just tiny human female, she could get hurt so easily. The young man took deep breath and looked at the night sky. He sat there for a moment watching the black abyss when the fatigue of the day simply took over and he simply fell into uneasy sleep.

Arcee observed her partner for a moment and then decided that she too could use a quick recharge. They were sitting in small clearing in the middle of some forest, safe from prying eyes so she could rest for a moment without danger of being spotted by some prying eye, at least human prying eyes – Arcee thought as she heard some night animals going around their own business.

* * *

**Part 8 – Creatures of the Night.**

Megatron emerged from the med bay with his old forearm back in place. Traditionally he declined any kind of anaesthetics, so he was wide awake when Knockout was cutting the temporary patch off, cleaning joint’s surface first with sand paper, then with various solvents to remove any kind of impurity; connecting cabling, energon lines and welding metal. Then Knockout took some polish paste, a rotary buffer and finished his task. When the Decepticon overlord stood up and made his way to the door, Knockout informed him that the connection will be sore fore few cycles and that lubricating the joint before and after recharge for another seven cycles would be beneficial and lessens the aches. Megatron acknowledged the advice, it was good one and as tough as he was, he wasn’t above taking care of himself as he needed to be in top condition.

Now was time for the second attraction of the evening – a human femme by the name of June Darby, also known as Jack’s mother. Megatron bristled up his plating as he always did to add more to his already impressive and intimidating self (a matter of prestige). Only moments ago he received message from Starscream that they were waiting on the bridge as Starscream could not enter Megatron’s quarters (and Megatron wasn’t planning on giving his personal codes to Starscream). Megatron sent order to Starscream to meet him before his doors.

The corridor leading to his quarters looked just like every other on the ship, and Megatron personally couldn’t wait to move to New Kaon. Soundwave was preparing tower’s computer systems and downloading all the needed data. By Megatron’s personal order the spy was to finish the task as soon as possible and not bother himself with other tasks, at this point simple surveillance of their surroundings was easy enough for drones.

As he came near to his dwelling rooms he heard some rocket. Someone was shouting loudly, and for once it wasn’t Starscream. A Vehicon’s voice could be heard, the soldier tried to calm the yelling one, but to no avail. Starscream was barking something angrily, but quietly (a bad sight in the seeker, it meant that he was calm and that in turn meant that his mind worked in its full, vicious capacity). The Vehicon said something about what’s done is done, and then the same angry voice answered him to shove his head up his butt. Another Vehicon giggled and a lout ‘clang’ could be heard – it would appear that Sratscream hit him up the head in what humans (and few older Vehicons) would call “give someone the Gibbs”. The ‘clang’ was followed by yelp, and more shouting. Megatron vented heavily – he was tired already – and approached the noisy party.

Vehicon known as Gavin held June Darby as if she was made of glass, but otherwise he seemed unfazed by entire situation. June yelled (in very strong voice) at everyone else. Two other Vehicons stood and whimpered under both June and Starcream’s attention. Starscream himself was reprimanding a silver plated Vehicon (the newest batch) for not keeping glossa behind his denta plates. The silver Vehicon had at least the decency to look ashamed (or as ashamed as someone without a face could).

“What in the name of Dark Energon is the meaning of this absurd?” Megatron stomped closer; his outburst granted him their attention. Two whimpering Vehicons tried to look as small and innocent as possible. The silver one only hunched his shoulders more. Gavin didn’t move a single digit, for once he had no reason to be nervous, it wasn’t him who screwed. Starcream instantly silenced and June stared with her mouth ajar. “I’m listening.”

It was June who came to her senses first. “What happened? You happened! You kidnapped my son and his friends and made hostages out of them! You…”

“SILENCE! Starcream, what in the Pit happened in here to cause all this nonsense?” The seeker winced slightly, but he, just like Gavin, was innocent, so in theory he was safe. In theory.

“Lord Megatron… We had a slight indiscretion here.” At this point a blow usually occurred, so Starscream silenced, but Megatron looked rather calm. “Uh, Mike here managed to blurt out about us having the three human children as hostages on Cybertron.” Megatron optics fell on mentioned Vehicons, who noticed it and whimpered.

“A newbie.” Exclaimed the tyrant. “It was to be expected. Starscream, I will leave his punishment to you, just don’t injure him beyond repair.”

“Yes, my lord.” Starscream bowed low and grabbed the silver Vehicon.

“You two, stop cowering, you’re supposed to be members of a victorious armada, not pair of wimpy sparklings. Out of my sight the both of you!”

June just stared at retrieving four, then she focused on Megatron, he truly was imposing. Slightly taller than Optimus, but his entire stance was different. Optimus was gentle with the air of amazing strength and grace, one could forgot just how much he weight while just watching him move around. Megatron was very alike, yet different. He also gave the feeling of unimaginable strength, and he certainly walked with graceful gait, but one could feel how heavy he was. The impression of raw power radiated from him like warmth from the Sun. The easiest comparison that June could think about was King Arthur and Conan the Barbarian. And at this very moment his eyes focused on her. Two pools filled with blood.

But June wasn’t that easy to intimidate, nor to charm. She took deep breath and opened her mouth. “You!”

“Enough.” This time he didn’t yell. It was calm but firm statement. “You there, give me the human and leave.” Gavin gently placed June in Megatron’s waiting palm, then gave her a check out one last time and left.

The door to tyrant’s lair opened with quiet ‘swoosh’ and Megatron entered while sending data for the door controls to lock the door. June found herself gently placed on what could only be a desk. Decepticon leader took one chair and sat on it. June snarled. She wouldn’t have any of this. She was tired, cold and her tank top soaked because her hair were still dripping with water (as she lost her towel somewhere on the way). And there was a man that hurt her child.

“Now listen, I know what you did and I won’t accept any excuses!” – The woman focused her wrath on her “host”; it was about time that she would give him piece of her mind.

Megatron’s optic brows rose slightly as he leaned a little bit closer to his “guest”. “Good, I am not offering any.”

This took June by surprise, she imagined that he would at least claim that he did it for his cause, but he didn’t.

“Are you not going to at least try to justify yourself?” Another blow, June furrowed her brows. “Well, like it or now, you do owe me an explanation of just what you did to my SON and his friends!”

Megatron blinked once, she did have a point, she was a mother and it was natural for her to demand explanation. He of course could deny her, it was his right as a tyrant, but he was no coward, he would not avoid this subject.

“You do have a point. “He admitted. “Of course I do not owe you anything but I will humour you: The war.” That was it, June was furious now. It didn’t matter that he was gigantic robot and she was tiny human, she was ready to breathe fire.

“A war! That’s your excuse? A stupid war? Now, I don’t know what were you imagining, mister, but I am not…”

“Enough!” June almost jumped when Megatron surged forward stopping only six feet from her. She could see her own reflection in his optics. “The war. Your son and his friends are part of it. Ever since they started to assist the Autobots. They chose to fight against me and in consequence they are my enemies, and they are treated as such, though I am very lenient with them.”

Megatron eased back and June took one shaky breath. He had a point, but she wasn’t about to simply give in, instead she decided to take different approach. “Megatron! Those are children! They are far from being soldiers.”

The Decepticon leader only tilted his helm as he was considering his reply. “Is that so? You think that mere age does make any difference? You are sorely mistaken, my dear June, your own species used to use children as soldiers, and still does in many places. In what you call ‘The World War Two’ children younger than the one called Rafael were soldiers among with adults and adolescents.” June had to admit that Megatron did his homework about human warfare. She hated the thought of losing this argument to him.

“That doesn’t makes your actions right.”

“This conversation leads to nowhere. You as a mother wouldn’t be able to accept any explanation I could give you because of the simple fact that it is your child we’re talking about. Besides, it is not the cause of your presence here.”

***

Soundwave stopped his mundane task of transferring data to the computer network in New Kaon; as Laserbeak flew in chirping in his own unique way. The communication officer allowed his symbiont to dock on his chest glad for any additional data to process; his current job was boring even for him. The data stream flew slowly in and Soundwave scanned them as they went. Suddenly one video file attracted his attention. He re-watched it. “Scrap” – he thought. It was late and his master busy, but he needed to know that so he sent a ping.

***

Megatron was about to state his business to June, when he heard a ping from his only truly competent officer. This had to be important otherwise Soundwave wouldn’t bother him. He stood up.

“What is it?” A simple text message appeared in his internal HUD. “Slag! I’m on my way.”

He glanced at June, who stood silently on his desk. It was only then when he noticed that she trembled, the hair on her head was wet and every now and then a single drop of water fell on her white (now slightly transparent in few places) upper garment. He studied her more carefully and decided that she had to be cold; especially that she didn’t seem to wear anything underneath said wet element of her clothing.

“Are you cold?”

June didn’t know what to make out of his sudden interest in her wellbeing. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you seem to tremble and your clothes are wet, as your hair for that matter. Not to mention other symptoms.”

She gave a sight; there was no point in arguing. “Yes, I am cold.”

“I will bring you something on my way back. Do not try to escape, you won’t be able to leave this room and I will be back shortly.” With this Megatron left his quarters leaving June alone.

***

Heavy footsteps echoed in the dark corridor before doors to the bridge opened revealing rather peeved Megatron. Soundwave turned away from his working station and dipped his help in mute greeting. Starscream and Knockout who the communication officer also summoned gave him startled look. It would seem that this time everyone managed to fail, including Megatron himself.

“Just how in the name of the Allspark something like this could have happened!” Mighty roar of mighty Megatron rolled through hallways of his mighty warship startling everyone. In Megatron’s quarters June could hear it all too clear, but somehow she was the only one on board of Nemesis who was not scared by it.

Megatron ex-vented with huff as he felt helm ache forming. He knew what happened: they were so convinced that they won that they completely forgotten to take precaution and leave sentries in the ruins. That was an order he himself should give. He suddenly had the urge to kick himself in the aft, if it would be anatomically possible. But all he could do was to manage the situation.

* * *

**Part 9 – They Only Come Out at Night**

Megatron felt tired as he left the bridge. The situation had been managed as well as it was possible given the circumstances. This time Megatron couldn’t just point a digit at someone and claim that it is their fault. For once he would have point at himself. For a change it wasn’t Starcream’s fault as his second was performing task given by Megatron. Knockout was busy re-attaching his old arm, so he was out of question as a scapegoat. Soundwave was fulfilling Megatron’s order to prepare New Kaon’s computer systems. Dispatching Laserbeak was his own decision, and one that he should be praised for, he was at least able to provide them with this news. All in all none of his mechs was guilty.

Orders were given, troop were dispatched and all that could’ve be done been done. The main goal at this point was to keep whatever was left in case humans would return to completely destroy what was left of Autobot base. Megatron was fairly sure that even with use of fragile and primitive yet reasonably efficient human technology; something had to survive the destruction of mesa. More so, some parts were Cybertronian, so chances were that there were still tasty morsels in those ashes and rubble.

Soundwave had to finish preparing New Kaon to function as their main base on this planet, this meant that the spy will be busy, that was why Megatron dispatched five ground based Vehicons for Soundwave to command. Those troops would manage monitoring duty that Soundwave shared with Decepticon SIC (currently Starscream).

The mech in question was also busy for the next few Earth’s days. Shockwave provided Megatron with new batch of flying Vehicons that while fight worthy still needed training under watchful optic of the Air Commander. Starscream already had entire training schedule and the next day was “object retrieving/rescue mission” day. In plain words Screamer would play fetch with newbies. Megatron planned to attend as such thing was always amusing event.

The next day would be busy one indeed. Megatron vented a sigh and made his way back to his quarters, where his unusual guest was awaiting him.

***

Jasper was a ghost town at this point, as Gavin the Vehicons observed. He knew that there will be few humans left there, thieves that stayed only to plunder abandoned stores, but aside from them it was empty. And why he was here? Was it for pleasure? No, it was because his one true lord and master wanted human items. Gavin guessed that if it was for that organic femme, then he wouldn’t mind so much. It was probably his last task that day as he would finish his shift shortly, and it could been worst. At least this task wasn’t risky or difficult. He knew what was needed and where to find it. Megatron probably didn’t recognise him, but that didn’t matter. The mere fact that he was simply human femmes – women as they were called – connoisseur made his task so much easier: he simply knew where to look.

This is why he now stopped in front of Jasper’s only mall, it wasn’t much, but it had all the necessary shops. Gavin rode inside and blessed the fact that it had only one level. Then he cursed the fact that the roof was so low, he would have to crouch after he transformed.

Finding the shop he looked for didn’t took him long, in no time he was crouching in front of small shop full of fluffy towels and other similar items. He reached and grabbed handful of fluffy towels. Then he reached again and this time took some blankets made of polar. The next thing on the “shopping” list was some upper garment. Appropriate shop wasn’t far away but this time Gavin had some difficulties. It was full of different clothes. Gavin knew that women wanted nice clothes, but he just had too much to choose from. No wonder shopping always took them so long. The Vehicon would furrow his optic brows if he had them, femmes had certain common traces, no matter the species, they wanted “pretty” things. The definition of pretty differed from one femme to another, but certain things were the same for everyone. It had to be in the right size. Match their chosen colour pattern. And look nice on them.

Gavin quickly made decision that he had no time to ponder about what colour the femme liked, he held her and he could easily tell her size, as it went for what would look good on her, he decided that something “romantic” as she was delicate and fragile. He eyed various designs and then grabbed a model of light, partially transparent, romantic blouse with short frill sleeves. He didn’t know what colour the femme liked so he took one of each available, that was: light green, fuchsia, pink, peachy and pinkish red. He almost drove away when he realised that he femme wore no undergarment. He didn’t mind that, but she would probably like to have a bra. So he stopped by lingerie shop and grabbed what he thought was the most universal bra: peach coloured lacy B-cup bra. Now that he finished his task, he could return to Nemesis.

***

Megatron turned to the corridor that led to his quarters when suddenly a Vehicon appeared before him. The soldier held small box that was usually used to store small objects like screws, nails or caps.

“My Lord, the items you requested.” The Vehicon handed him the box.

Megatron blinked once and then recalled that he did ordered one Vehicon to fetch him few items. He took the box and dismissed the Vehicon with short “Good job”.

The warlord opened the box and peered inside. The Vehicon indeed did well as there was everything he wanted. There were few towels; couple blankets that looked warm enough and some upper garments. Megatron noted that they all looked the same except of colour and decided that it was probably so June could pick the colour she preferred. How thoughtful – he thought. And then the tyrant noticed a peculiar thing. On top of everything lay strange object. It was made of delicate webbing like material, had few straps and two bowl like structures. Megatron raised one optic brow contemplating its function. He poked it with tip of his claw, but couldn’t figure what it was for. Then he realised just who that Vehicon was. The one that was called Gavin: notorious perv that was known for smuggling human femmes to his personal room and indulge in all kind of lewd activities. At least that was how rumour had it. Megatron himself suspected that said lewd acts included dancing and stripping and not much more, which wasn’t that bad (he knew about much worse things that Senators and High Council members did with organic and non-organic femmes from few worlds).

The important thing was that if Gavin picked this strange object chances were that it was important and Megatron wasn’t the one to argue with specialist in organic femmes subject. Especially that he himself was first to admit that he knew next to nothing about femmes, organic or not, and their private business. For example he never figured out why Airachnid insisted on having separate cleaning solution for her helm and just why she spent so long repainting details on her faceplates? There were only two mechs on board who knew such things. One of them was Gavin who enjoyed femme’s company more than anything else. The second one was Knockout, who shortly after arriving on Earth declared himself “metrosexual” (whatever that meant) and claimed that he have every right to look “as good as he can, unlike certain mechs who wouldn’t recognise rotary buffer even if it would hit them in their visors, thank you very much”.

Megatron stopped. He was so lost in his thought that he didn’t noticed when he arrived at his own doors.

***

June shrugged, she was cold and tired, but she didn’t plan on waiting for Megatron to return. She needed to escape so she started to look for anything that could help her. She looked around her; the desk she was standing on was mostly empty, only few data pads lay on the far end. She walked to them; perhaps one of them contained some sort of map? She tapped first one and it came to life. There was some sort of list, she couldn’t read most of the glyphs but few looked like small pictures. Upon closer examination June grinned. It was Megatron’s personal playlist. It looked like he liked Cybertronian music and – for some reason – Rolling Stones. So – June mused – humans do have something of interest, do they? She tapped the tablet again and it went to stand-by mode again.

She tried three more, but they seemed to only hold reports (or something like that, she didn’t thought that Megatron made his crew write essays as punishment), some schematics and short video of himself beating some sort of metallic beast into scrap. That had to be him in his gladiatorial times. There was close shot of his face and June couldn’t believe that it was Megatron. The mech had blue optics, very similar to those of Smokescreen, his chin looked differently and he lacked all those scars around his optics and mouth. The mech grinned showing the same pointed dentas that modern Megatron had. The recording ended with crowd cheering in roars, buzzes, clicks and other sounds that June associated with Cybertronian language. June tapped the pad again to shut it down.

As interesting those data pads were, none of them was of any use for her. There was nothing she could use to make a rope; Megatron moved his chair away from the desk, so she couldn’t use it to get down. Just as she entertained the thought of jumping directly to the floor (and breaking both legs in the process) she heard peeping at the door – Megatron returned.

* * *

**Part 10 – Queen of the Night.**

Megatron entered his quarters and was glad to see June just where he left her. His internal chronometer told him that he was out for perhaps twenty human minutes, which wasn’t very long. June was still trembling, her hair was wet and he observed goose bumps on her skin. Her upper garment looked slightly less moist, but it still had wet spots where it was plastered to her bare skin.

Human femme eyed him warily as he showed his chair closer to the desk. He sat heavily and then gave her closer look, he failed to do it before and the photography didn’t give her justice. Such a miniature femme.

“I have brought you items that you may deem useful.” He stated putting small box on his desk. “As I understand you should dry yourself and keep your body temperature at steady level. You should find necessary items inside.”

Megatron allowed his optics to linger on her as she opened the box that for her was more like medium sized chest; and peered inside. He never observed a human femme from this close before. She was slim and delicate built yet there was strange air of strength around her, she radiated this odd aura of authority that he ascertained had to come from the fact that she was mother and nurse. Her colours added to her fragile look with the contrast between dark hair and light skin tone. It was pleasant look for an optic.

The woman looked up and caught him staring at her but said nothing in the subject.

“Thank you.” She said and then dove in the box again. She took out one towel started to dry her hair with energetic movements. Megatron looked fascinated as she did so, organics were indeed weird creatures. Their hair (or fur in case most of mammals) was an odd thing. When wet it was capable of keeping a lot of moisture in.

Normally he wouldn’t be so fascinated with what he considered inferior species but in current circumstances he found himself interested. Humans did surprise him on numerous occasions and proved to be quite an aid for Autobots. Of course they were also a weak link, but in most cases they managed rather well. Megatron loathed even to thinking that, but they proved their own worth many times.

The smallest of them survived Dark Energon blast (though Megatron suspected that June Darby and Ratchet had a lot to do with it) and gave Soundwave run for his fuel quite a few times, not to mention that accursed virus that they discovered, but only after it sent the Iacon Data base to Autobots. Soundwave was livid in his own way.

The impertinent femmeling also showed what she can do when she killed Hardshell. True she did it with missiles from that damned Wrecker’s ship, but the point had been made – she was aggressive enough to fight back using any means.

And Jack, one that in Megatron’s optics was almost as bad as Prime himself. A kid who not only spared him in that collapsed mine, returned Primes memories with Key to Vector Sigma but – what was the most humiliating – managed to save entire Nemesis by dropping the Dark Energon from the engine. The part that pained Megatron the most was that it was his own action that led them to be in such vulnerable predicament in the first place, and though he wanted to do just the same, it was the brat who actually managed it. True, the little worm did it to spare the human city, but the end result was all the same.

And those were the kids. There were two adults on top of that. While agent Fowler proved to be nuance on more than one occasion, he simply did his job. Megatron understood that the human was assigned to the Autobots and not chose to work with them. In the end they cooperated well, but the fact was that Fowler simply did his job.

The nurse, the human femme was entirely different case. It was safe to assume that she met the Autobots because of her son but, as the intel indicated, she wasn’t as enthusiastic about the entire situation as children were (she didn’t have a ‘guardian’). That opened few possibilities for Megatron. While he knew that the nurse supported Autobots, he also knew that she remained sceptic about them being entirely good. Especially after the whole revenge stunt that Wheeljack and Miko pulled.

Megatron refocused on June, she sat with her back turned to him unwrapped the towel from her hair and brushed it with her fingers to manage them to the best of her ability. The black mass was already much drier. Then she took off her top. That was another aspect of humans that Megatron found plainly weird – they could took off their equivalent of outer armour so easily. The femme took the mysterious part of human garment and wrapped the loner strap around her ribcage and buckled it with its tiny buckle. Then she put her arms into the loop that shorter straps formed, the bowl like structures were in from of her and Megatron guessed that they were now covering her mammal glands. ‘So, that’s what it’s for’ – he thought. Now that he knew it seemed logical, though why would she cover her glands with additional part of garment was beyond him, it was probably some cultural matter. The femme stared for a moment at the blouses at picked one coloured almost like her own flesh then put it on. Megatron noticed that it was half transparent and how the glad cover was slightly visible.

“I know it wasn’t you who went out for those, but it was very thoughtful to provide me with bra.” June turned to Megatron who observed how she looked in what Gavin brought.

“Yes, I already praised the Vehicon who did look for all of this.” Megatron leaned back in his chair as she pulled one blanket and wrapped it around herself. “Though I am curious about one thing.”

“I guess that’s why you brought me here. To ask questions.” June hid her legs under the blanket. “Probably about where the Autobots went. I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t think anyone know where all of them are.”

“That was one of the question I would ask, but thank you for answering it, though I am not sure if I believe you.” There was slight grin on the tyrant’s face. “I was thinking about something less crucial for a start. Let’s see, how did you met the Autobots? I was always curious how you learned about them. Did your son introduced them to you or did he hold their secret until you learned on your own?”

June eyed the Decepticon with suspicion, there was no way that he would ask that just because he wanted to know, he was up to something but for now she had to play along. Perhaps stale as much as she could. She hoped for someone to rescue her, but she had to buy them time. And if there was no help from outside, she still had to get herself more time to figure how to get out of here on her own.

“M.E.C.H. and Airachnid kidnapped me to get to my son and Arcee. Later I learned that it happened shortly after they caught Breakdown. They wanted Arcee for their sick experiments and Airachnid wanted revenge on Jack and Arcee for destroying her ship. That was the big secret that my son held, and I thought that he simply used his bike for illegal racing.” June involuntary smiled under her nose. Right now she would prefer illegal racing over alien robots.

“That’s interesting. You raised your son to be responsible yet you suspected him for something so reckless?” June huffed. He had a point but as a mother it was her duty to expect the unexpected.

“He is a teenage, no matter how mature he seems; he is far from being an adult. Teens tend to make haste choices, especially when it comes to social situations. If someone in his school would challenge him he would accept just to prove himself and to keep his teen pride intact. As a mother I must foresee such situations and prevent them as much as I can. You never had children, have you?”

“No, I never had the opportunity to sire a sparkling. Nor I was made a caretaker of one born out of the Well. But I believe it is I who ask questions here.” Megatron tensed immediately, he would not lose control of this situation. Not to puny organic.

“Qui pro quo Megatron” June smiled inwardly realising that Miko would probably called her Hannibal Lecter. “You didn’t think I will give you what you want that easily, didn’t you? For start you kidnapped my son and his friends and threatened them with horrible death. Second of all you are the enemy who want to see my kind and Autobots Destroyed.”

“You know I can always torture you. You will give me what I want when I will put you through excruciating pain.” Megatron rose from his chair and stood close to his desk towering over the poor woman in intimidating way, but somehow it didn’t worked. To his utter shock she only lift up her head as much as her neck allowed it and smiled crooked, nasty smile that he only saw in gladiatorial den.

“Go ahead. I was giving birth to Jack for 28 hours, without anaesthesia and in so called “natural” way. If that’s not excruciating then nothing is.”

Megatron winced. He was happy to claim that he knew nothing about organic childbirth other than the fact that it was messy and violent event with ripping tissues and sipping organic fluids. He knew that the Cybertronian equivalent made him feel strangely queasy and it was quite organised procedure performed in civilized conditions by trained medics with professional equipment.

He sat and narrowed his optics at the human femme who was now standing with her hands on her hips.

“Fine, femme, I will humour you this time as I have nothing to lose. But don’t make a habit of crossing me, I am not known for my patience and I won’t allow any puny human to order me around in my own quarters. Femme or not, if I find you too annoying I will simply squish you.”

“Works for me.” June sat and wrapped herself with blanket while hiding trembling hands. She believed when he said that he will squish her. “You asked me two questions and I answered both of them. I asked you one, which leaves me with one more before it’s your turn. Am I right?”

“It would seem so.” Megatron pulled his chair closer to the desk. He could play along as long as he would get his answers. The fact that she would lie to him when it came to crucial issues was given, but she would always give some information without even knowing it and that was what he counted on. Perhaps he could even sow a seed of uncertainty in her mind? He didn’t have to lie to do that, the truth about so called Golden Age was enough to cause her doubts about Autobot cause and their dream of restoring the Autobot order. He didn’t knew of what use that would be, but it could come in handy at some point, even if only to work on Autobot nerves or cause Prime some moral helm ache. It didn’t matter. He would wait and see.

“Fine.” June sat cross legged and looked Megatron up and down. It was time to stall a bit; she had to choose her question wisely. “You said that you never been sire nor care taker, what’s the difference?”

Megatron stared at her for few moments and then made a face, oh great, of all questions she had to ask for that! He already made up his mind, so he wouldn’t back away, but he didn’t like this question either. He didn’t knew how much that accursed Autobot medic told her, so he had to tell the truth, but on the other hand, the truth could work for him.

“Basic, my dear. Cybertronians have, or rather had, two ways of procreation as a race. The sexual reproduction where carriers would conceive new spark and basic protoform that would develop further and gain upgrades as it matured. The second one – and original – was by Well of Sparks.” He waited a second to see if June took the bait, after she didn’t interrupted he continues. “Sparklings born from the Well had no creators; they were brand new set of genetic material and settings, no heritage, no family connections. They were given to pairs of Cybertronians that volunteered to take care of them. Such a sparkling would receive their upgrades and medical service from the caste they were taken into. Majority of them ended up in lower castes, only few had more luck. Orion Pax was one of them; Soundwave on the other hand was one of the majority that ended low. All depended on a council that performed evaluation of a sparkling, the council was corrupted of course, and usually sent the most promising sparklings to low castes, so they wouldn’t stand in a way of noble sparklings future careers. Only when there was a need for such a well-developed sparkling, then it would go to higher caste caretakers.” He stopped to see if June managed to follow his explanation.

“Please continue.” She asked, her eyes were wide and her face focused. She never suspected that it was so complicated. But her plan worked, Megatron talked and time flew.

“As you wish. Higher castes were composed of nobility – long family chains. To become part of them one had to be born a noble or be taken from a Well by a noble family. Sometimes young sparklings that lost their creators or caretakers were taken in, but it was rare occurrence. Sparklings from higher castes had carriers and sires and usually bonded to a femme from another noble family or took a femme from the Well. In lower castes a femmes were rarity and so sparklings with actual creators and not caretakers were also rare. I was such a sparkling. My sire came from military caste that after the age of wars ended was sent to serve as workers because of their heavy built, my carrier came from the Well, but was one of those who were left in lower castes because of her military built. Higher castes preferred unarmed femmes.”

“So you were literally born for warfare?”

“Indeed, you can say that. But I believe it is my turn to ask.” Now, Megatron almost laughed, was time to get some information. “Children have their guardians, why don’t you?”

“Because they’re children.” June was lost, why ask that? Shouldn’t he ask for some back-up plans? “I’m an adult, I can drive on my own, I work, I can’t depend on someone to drive me around. Besides, I never came to battlefield, for you I was just another human.”

“Oh, but I remember you well from that one time when I visited Autobot base. As I told your son, I never forget faces.”

June huffed. Megatron took few second to analyse what she said. So, Autobots weren’t guarding their charges all the time? It was logical; they had their own duties, so they probably left the children in school or home and only drove them in between localisations.

“My turn.” June focused on Megatron. Time to play Hannibal Lecter. Something psychological then.

***

Two Ch-47s hovered above ground as their precious loads were been un-hooked. General Brice watched with grim face as two wounded aliens laid there, one of them conscious, the second barely clinging to life. It didn’t look good, and the general knew that there will be voices that will gladly blame those particular aliens for the entire mess in Jasper. General knew better than that. Even if Autobots never showed on Earth, Decepticons would come sooner or later on their own; he had no doubts about that. Somewhere in the back another helicopter landed, it was agent Fowler judging after angry commands that were given. Then quick steps that came closer and closer until the special agent was standing next to the general.

“What’s the status?” General never looked away from the scene before him, where the impromptu stretchers were packed on the special trucks to take them underground.

“Nurse Darby had been taken by four Decepticons by their Ground Bridge. I suspect that she was taken to the ship as the tower is fresh construction and probably unfit for use yet. I saw three Vehicons, two purple and one silver. Silver ones must be new because I never saw them before. The fourth looked like Starscream which would suggest that he returned to Megatron.”

“What about others?” Brice finally looked at Fowler. His stare was hard and not necessarily friendly.

“Only Ratchet and Optimus know where they are. We can communicate with use of several e-mail accounts that were set for occasions such as this, but I think the safest option is for them to stay ‘lost’.” Fowler felt like shrinking under general’s heavy gaze. “Soundwave will be looking for them, and while Ratchet or Arcee have rather common looking disguises, the rest not so much. Big, green ATV and two sport cars, one eye-screwing yellow and one with two striking 38’s on its doors; stand out like di… I mean are easily noticeable. Their pictures will be in the web in no time. Sir, you have no idea how many pictures of Bumblebee and Smokescreen Raf deleted from various sites.”

“I see.” General returned to observing his men strapping two Autobots to their ‘gurneys’. “But sooner or later they will have to get back together.”

“Yes, but only after we are fully prepared, we will have to transport them, if they will drive on their own the danger of Soundwave finding them is very high. We will have to find them new base, they can’t stay here forever.”

“Agreed. But I’m not so sure about the new base, how did Decepticons found them in the first place?”

“Soundwave had to follow them for some time now. The new place has to be either in heavy populated area where it will be easier for them to simply disappear in the traffic, or in some completely isolated place where they will have to use Ground Bridge to get closer to civilisation so Soundwave won’t be able to follow them back to base.” Fowler followed after two truck taking ‘Bots away. He learned to treat them as friends, even Wheeljack with his attitude problems. He didn’t know Smokescreen for too long, but the kid reminded him of himself just after his training as Ranger, so eager for action. It wasn’t easy to watch the team scattered like that.

“Again agreed, but for now we have bigger worried. Contact Ratchet and tell him to go to the nearest military base then call you back, our people can keep Prime alive, but I don’t think that they can fix him. The other one shouldn’t much of a problem. I don’t know about the nurse. She may be dead already.”

“Yes sir. But I don’t think that June… eh, Nurse Darby is dead. They took her alive for some reason. Megatron will probably want to interrogate her and we both know that their ways of asking questions is violent in nature. But then again, if she was taken as hostage, he won’t risk harming her, at least not too much, before trading her for something or someone.”

“You think he will try to trade her for Prime?”

“That is possible. That’s why as soon as it will be possible I want to mount rescue mission, preferable with Wheeljack and perhaps Arcee, if she will be available.” Fowler held his breath, general could agree but could decide to wait for Megatron’s move. Maybe even agree to trade June for Optimus.

“We can’t give Megatron Prime; first of all we do not negotiate with terrorists…” General Brice stopped for a moment when Fowler gave deep sight. “But we can’t rescue her on our own. Let’s wait until morning for Megatron to make his move, if he won’t do anything, then we will think about rescue mission.”

“Thank you sir.” Fowler’s knees almost gave, Brice was strangely agreeable, but then again the man finally saw what Decepticons are capable of. He knew before that their only way of defence is Team Prime, but now he had chance to see against what exactly they were defending them from.

“Now, let’s see what our own doctors and engineers will say about Prime’s condition.” General showed Fowler way to the elevators that would take them under ground.

***

Arcee woke with a start, she quickly checked her surroundings but all came clear. Some night creatures were making quiet noises, crickets were chirping in the grass of the clearing, the night sky was clear and distant start twinkled like small diamonds. A perfect night. Except for the circumstances that led her to this tranquil place. She looked at her partner who was sleeping soundly just few feet away, luckily her little panicked awaking didn’t rose him from his slumber. Primus knew that the kid had a rough day. Firstly he was abducted by ‘Cons, then he was chased away from his home and to complete the horrible day – his mother, only parent he really had, was kidnapped by the same ‘Cons that took him earlier. And he couldn’t do anything about it. She knew how he felt, and that made her feel even worse. After all she was his guardian above anything else; it was her duty to protect him. But how one can protect from life itself?

The dark blue femme laid back and settled for some more recharge. She had to be well rested in the morning, for now they were still safe.

***

Ratchet drove, he didn’t care where exactly, he just had to be in the move. So many things occurred. He couldn’t gather his own thoughts. Decepticons invaded Jasper and found their base. Optimus fate was unknown to him. Wheeljack was shot down by that flying glitch Starscream, who reunited with Megatron! And Optimus destroying Omega Lock, taking away their hope to ever coming home!!! Ratchet seemed furious but in reality he was depressed. Others saw grumpy old medic with bedside manner of Earth creature called wolverine, but in reality Ratchet was very emotional mech with really poor bedside manner. He covered his delicate inside with foul outside. It was his only defence mechanism against cruelty of war.

He checked his e-mail accounts without enthusiasm, he wanted to be left alone, hopefully they would stay empty. No such luck. The second account had one message from agent Fowler. Ratchet grumbled angrily. He was in no mood for interaction with organics. He didn’t blame them for what happened; he blamed himself for not sending the Ground Bridge to children so they would be safe with him instead ending as ‘Con’s hostages. He just didn’t want to have contact with locals; he didn’t need to be reminded that he was far away from home. But those were emergency accounts; if Fowler contacted him then it had to be important. Ratchet opened the message and started to read it.

“Base had been destroyed. Optimus was inside when that happened. We managed to get him and Wheeljack to safety. Wheeljack’s fine, but Optimus is barely alive. Our own doctors and engineers are keeping him alive but it’s all they can do, he needs your help. Don’t worry about spare parts; we have full set thanks to Nemesis Prime.

June had been kidnapped by ‘Cons, we don’t know what Megatron is planning to do with her, but it’s either interrogation with obligatory torture or he took her as hostage and will want to trade. In any case we’re giving him time until tomorrow to make his move and then we’ll see.

If you’re still in US or on any of the NATO countries territory; head to the nearest military base and then contact me.”

Ratchet stopped leaving skid marks on the road and stood there for good five minutes digesting what he just learned. Wheeljack survived his crash and was wounded, but mildly enough for humans to take care of him. But Optimus was in the base it was destroyed – by Decepticons, who else – and suffered whatever injuries that caused. Could he forgive Optimus for destroying Omega Lock? Could he not forgive? There were so many things about that situation. There were the children. There was the Earth – which interference in communications had to be when Megatron lounged the beam – which Optimus tried to protect. There was Unicron and multitude of unknown consequences of that beam reaching his spark chamber. Optimus had to think of all of those aspects of entire situation. And then again, why not just take the keys or just one, out of the lock? Did Optimus know something they didn’t? Did Optimus saw Omega Lock as something more than a way to restore Cybertron?

And then it hit him. An old legend, more like grim fairy tale, old wives’ tales – a nonsense repeated by few lunatics with imperialistic inclinations, an absurd that even Megatron wasn’t daft enough to consider a fact. A story that Cybertron, while being an actual planet, could be used as battle ship to conquer galaxies and that it was equipped with weapons to fight and subdue other worlds*), a purpose from before fight between Primus and Unicron.

Could Optimus consider Omega Lock as one of such weapons to subdue and transforms conquered worlds? Was it the reason why he saw fit to rather destroy it than allow Megatron to stay in possession of it? And if it was so, did Optimus know more than one way of restoring their home planet? Was there even other way? And when Optimus ejected the Allspark from their world, did he take measures to be able to locate it later?

So many questions that Ratchet didn’t knew answers to despite being much older than Optimus.

And June. Megatron took her and who knew what he was doing to her at the moment? Ratchet cared about the nurse; he valued her skills and respected her goal to become a doctor. They traded medical stories, she taught him much about human health and he in turn taught her basics of Cybertronian medicine. He never showed it, but if they would ever return to Cybertron he would truly miss her.

All of this resulted in one ambulance making a U-turn and speeding with sirens on in the direction of nearest military base (that he knew about). He had to hurry and he couldn’t be bothered by some human traffic laws.

* * *

*) Idea taken from Transformers War and Peace, issue 6, page 15 _“(…)Realize that the world you see before you is no mere planet, but a living, evolving weapon. (…) What army could possibly withstand the onslaught of a planet-sized warship?”_ – Shockwave about his plan to conquest the Earth.

* * *

**Part 11 – Midnight Summer Dream.**

June smiled inwardly as she thought about her next question. Nothing special, completely normal question, but the answer could take him some time. Maybe long enough so he would get tired. The metallic oaf had to go to recharge at some point, she reasoned, maybe he will simply leave me here and I will have my chance to escape.

“Megatron, I’ve heard many stories about Cybertron before the war. Ratchet told how he became medic. Arcee told us about her sisters. Bulkhead about life as a construction worker, Wheeljack about being engineer and demolition expert and Optimus about Iacon Hall of Records and his life as Orion Pax.” She gave her captor what she hoped looked like slightly shy smile. “I always wondered how you became gladiator and what you did before that?”

Megatron crooked his head. The fact that Autobots shared their past with their human allies didn’t surprise him. It was normal for Cybertronians to share stories with their closest friends and relatives. Before the war it was a custom to gather and tell tales. He participated in such events on regular basis with those few gladiator he considered close friends.

He haven’t had a chance to tell a story since that damned day when he was denied the title of Prime and Orion Pax turned from a friend to an enemy. Now, after all this time a human wanted to hear his tale? He didn’t know her and she didn’t know him, hardly a companionship to share their past, but what did he have to lose? The only mech that he considered close enough was Soundwave, and he knew them all already. That little human femme wanted to hear that particular story and he for some odd reason didn’t felt uncomfortable with the idea.

“Very well. As I mentioned before I was one of those lucky sparklings who had creators. I emerged from my carrier’s gestation chamber in city of Tarn, where military frame types were rather common even some time after the last war. My sire was a miner and my carrier was an explosive expert, both worked in the same mine. It was closed shortly after I received my second upgrade, an age you would probably compare to human 5 year old. We have moved to Kaon, where they signed new contracts. Kaon was mostly industrial city and while military frame types weren’t as common as in Tarn, they were still normal sight in the streets at that time so we weren’t sticking out that much. It was there where I grew up and received my upgrades. I was sent to caste education facility like any other youngling. While none of us low caste members couldn’t count on any great career we could receive decent education in the area of our future occupation, as it was desirable for workers to be good at their jobs.” Megatron paused for a moment as if deciding in how to continue the story. “As my education continued I was receiving successive upgrades along with my peers and slowly became the largest youngling in the group as my frame type determined. At the age that is Cybertronian equivalent of human 18 I received my final upgrade. It was very important moment for every Cybertronian as with the final upgrade we were choosing our gender, the armour design and main modification that would serve as base for future ones.”

“Wait!” June cut in with look of shock on her face. “What do you mean by ‘choosing your gender’?”

“Cybertronians upon their creation are hermaphrodites, as you say; we have potential to become both mech and femme. Our physical gender is formed only during our last and most extensive upgrade, but our mental gender is forming since the moment we leave gestation chambers of our carriers. There were some Cybertronians that chose to have both options, but most would choose only one of the two. I am surprised that Ratchet never told you, it is only natural after all.”

“For you maybe. We are born with our gender, aside from particular cases; our genes decide if a child is female or male. Physically we all start as females but then our genes decide if we continue as females or develop into males.” June pulled a troubled face. She had to remember that they were not only machines, they were also aliens. Real aliens with alien customs, physiology and everything else. The fact that they were robots didn’t change a thing; she was sitting on a desk of darned gigantic megalomaniacal metallic E.T. with plans of conquering Earth and the rest of known universe.

“Do you want me to continue?

“Yes, please.” She snapped from her musing.

‘Then pay attention. I don’t have habit of repeating myself.” Megatron gave June irritated look. He hoped that she won’t be drifting away like that too often. “ After I received my final upgrade that granted me powerful engine and matching hydraulics with armour thick enough to survive collapsing mine tunnel, which I have had chance to test quite recently, I am sure your son told you about that event; I was ready to assume my occupation and receive final designation. Designations, it was another difference between castes. Higher castes gave their sparklings their designations once; they only changed it if they had to. Us lowlifes only received actual designations after our final upgrade, before that we were known as out creators or caretakers charges. Also when high castes gave their young actual names, we received serial numbers. I was named D-16 and I used that designation for very long time.

I worked for the same company that my sire did and for some time we had the chance to work together. He was killed in mining accident few cycles later when sharp slab of rock cut him in a half; he bled in matter of clicks. My carrier followed him shortly after out of grief. It’s not unusual for bonded mechs or femmes to follow their deceased mates, a Cybertronian have to have a good reason to continue existence after such a traumatic event.”

June noticed that for a second there was a strange look in Megatron’s optics. He weren’t looking at her, but there was certain bitterness, maybe even sadness in his gaze. She had no doubt that he still grieved after his parents. He never mentioned any siblings so she guessed that he was an only child, much like Jack. For a second there she felt pang of guilt for forcing sad memories to someone, but it was Megatron, a creature that caused much more grief to countless people.

Megatron vented a heavy sight and looked straight at June, who managed to keep poker face. She felt slightly torn inside. On one hand he was a monster with blood – or energon – of countless being on his hands, or servos. But on the other hand, from what Ratchet said, he was product of the society he grew in and corruption that he tried to fight. A fallen hero, and after seeing that recording of young Megatronus she couldn’t help but feel curious about that side of him. None than less, she had to escape from clutches of this ‘fallen hero’, because as well behaving and chivalrous he was at the moment, she really didn’t want to find out how his darker side looked like. No matter if it was her or someone else on the receiving end. She quickly focused on Megatron as she heard him continue his story.

“After that I was left alone, but I continued and had a decent life. Not decent enough to think about starting a family of my own, even if I could find a mate, but good enough. Only then everything went wrong. I was transferred to a mine on an asteroid after the mine I originally worked in was closed. Life was harder, energon rations were thin and small, but our contracts didn’t allow us to quit and find different company before their termination. So we continued working. And then the reforms came, the Senate sent us some buffoon to tell us that the mine will be automatized and that, in essence, we’re fired ‘but worry not we’ll help you find new jobs’ that fop said.

Miners of course didn’t take that news lightly. People got angry, there were protests, some riots even. The mine crew was disciplinary dismissed; they told us that they were doing us a favour by not pressing charges. Some favour it was. Before we knew we were on transport ship to Cybertron. The company was obliged to send us back, so they did; only the contract never said it had to be in decent conditions, so we flew in cargo ship almost freezing into deactivation.

Later I learned that Soundwave was a shipping worker in that company and that he was one of the biggest troublemakers in those riots. But I didn’t meet him back then, he was in another ship. There were four cargo ships, each packed with miners and mine workers, each cold like the void itself and none was prepared to transport living cargo, so we spent three cycles on our feet unable to sit, recharge, refuel and use our engines to warm up because of highly flammable fumes…”

“That’s awful!” June found herself interrupting the story with quite some disgust. “How could they? That’s below any decency… ow, sorry. It’s just outraging.” She quickly stopped under Megatron’s stare. He didn’t look angry, but he clearly wasn’t happy about her outburst. With one optic brow raised in what could only be ‘are you quite finished?’ look he reassumed his storytelling.

“Back in Kaon wasn’t better. There was nothing waiting for us. With disciplinary discharges we could only dream of finding decent employment. Quite a number decided to go underground and ended as criminals. Some decided to find un-decent employment and work their ways up again. Perhaps they were the most rational ones. But there was a group of us that was too decent go against the law but too proud degrade ourselves with the lowest occupations possible. And then the miracle happened.

Kaon was particular city, local laws allowed much more liberty than in other cities. At that point society was bored and frustrated by high level of unemployment, low wages and energon shortage, so someone dug out old sport known as Gladiatorial Match to give the citizens something to drive their minds from the seemingly omnipresent difficulties. And they were recruiting gladiators. In fact, it was second in-take because many couldn’t take the training and quit leaving only the strongest and toughest. So the group I was in decided to try, little I knew that there was similarly thinking group of mechs from another ship that also decided to try their luck in the arena.

We had no place to go and the arena promised quarters, training and everything that any other employer would so with nothing to lose and everything to gain we went to the recruitment office straight away. They took everyone in, but warned that only half of us would make it through the training and even less would manage to the end of their first season.

Back then in the beginning of the arena death matches were still illegal so no one would die, safe for some accidents, but wounds and injuries happened on every day basis. They weren’t joking when they said that training was hard. Some weaker mechs never made it through first ten cycles, those stronger but less aggressive were next to get out. By the first half of the training only fifteen out of forty mechs remained. That’s when they combined us with the other large group that signed up earlier that day – mechs from the other cargo ship. It was that day that I met Soundwave for the first time, though we didn’t spoke with each other until the day we fought on the arena.

He was one of the largest mechs in the combined group. There were five of us really large mechs. Me, Clench, Soundwave and two other mechs that designations I don’t remember, but they were twins and didn’t came from cargo ship, but were recruited along with Soundwave’s group.

In the end from both groups there were twelve of us that became gladiators and receive new designations – again a ritual of passage. Only this time we could decide. Our training coach that filled out licences so we could legally fight had few suggestions for each of us. He said that I was as large, strong and menacing as the Fallen himself and that such a name would serve me well. I liked the idea and decided to go by that name.

And that’s how I became Megatronus the Gladiator of Kaon.”

June blinked as she slowly returned to reality. “I’ve heard many stories about you being successful gladiator, talented speaker and charismatic politician; but none of the Autobots ever mentioned what you were doing before you became gladiator.”

“I am not surprised, younger ones may not even know, and older ones rarely speak of so called Golden Age of Cybertron as anything but paradise, not wanting to acknowledge that their paradise was built on injustice by servos of countless slaves who only ever knew hunger and abuse.” There was certain bitterness in his voice that June couldn’t miss. But was he telling her the truth? Facts that she knew about him from Ratchet matched. She was told that Megatron came from low caste of workers; that he gained political popularity as Gladiator by loudly speaking of injustice of caste system and where his name came from. June guessed that he probably told her truth but only because it fitted him.

“I will disappoint you, Ratchet mentioned about the abuse of working class and while he often praises the Golden Age, he also repeats that it was far from perfection. Optimus always says that caste system was unjust.”

“You only met few Autobots. They may be your friends, June, but you only met the more amiable members of their faction. Make no mistake, not all Autobots are friendly, more than you know are even more hostile and violent than my Decepticons.” He observed as June’s face turns into mild disbelieve. “You do not believe me? It is your right, I am sure that you were warned about me being rather manipulative mech. I do not deny that, I am a politician after all. But if you will have a chance to do so ask one of your Autobot friends if that’s true, they will confirm what I just said; Prime instilled in them his own truthfulness.”

June stared at Megatron with mixed feelings. If she would ever get free and had a chance to meet one of the Autobots she could ask, she was sure they wouldn’t lie. Maybe even she could ask Ratchet or Optimus, they would tell her the bare truth, no matter how cruel it would be.

“Don’t tell me that your Decepticons are so friendly.” June suddenly felt angry. She recalled the mesa, the Vehicon that aimed at her, Airachnid, Raf being shot with dark energon by Megatron, Optimus losing his memory and the kids being kidnapped. How Megatron dare to say that Autobots were evil when all he did was so cruel?

“Far from it, my dear June. But we never claimed to be defenders of the weak. We’re army of victims of our own society. You know this to be true June.”

The woman felt silent, she had no reply to that. She knew origins of Decepticons; she was ashamed to admit that at least at the beginnings their cause was legit.

“Come now, do not pout…” The warlord spoke again in attempt to regain woman’s attention.

“Back on Cybertron, when you took the Omega Lock thing and you kept the children hostage, would you really kill them? That Vehicon said that they were in containers so they could breathe and that you would have those containers opened and expose them to Cybertronian atmosphere.”

“I believe it is my time to ask…” Megatron started, but June cut him off.

“Answer me and then you can have two questions in a row.”

“Sounds fair enough” Megatron agreed. “Do you know where the Omega Lock was localised?” June shake her head ‘no’. “I thought so. The place is known as Sea of Rust, an overwhelming yet barren wasteland filled with rust, hence the name. Everything there is covered in brownish-red dust, we call it ‘sea’ but you would probably call if ‘desert’. Tell me now, on a planet composed mostly from metal, what does vast amount of iron oxide mean?” He watched June giving him confused look. “I am sure that your education should provide you with at least basic understanding of chemistry.”

“Oxygen?”

“Bravo. Oxygen. Before the war Cybertron’s atmosphere was composed of many different gases, it held enough oxygen to make our skies blue, just like Earth’s. We still have oxygen on Cybertron, but cities air is filled with fumes toxic for humans. Or at least I believe that they’re toxic for humans, they aren’t healthy for Cybertronians so it seems logical. But Sea of Rust is mostly empty, there was some fighting there too, but only in few areas and they lasted very short; there are no toxic fumes there. Cybertronian atmosphere isn’t identical with Earth’s, it is also a lot drier, still even if not perfectly fit, it would do for a little while.”

June stared in disbelief; this was just like a blow in the face. “You bluffed? You made Optimus believe that you would harm the children if he wouldn’t hand those keys or whatever they were?”

Megatron would laugh and clam his hands if it was in his nature. But he just gave June lopsided grin with playful glint in his optics. “No, I would release them and I am not completely sure if they would take it well, I don’t know about other gases that are present in Cybertronian air, but yes I just hoodwinked Optimus Prime, the last of Primes, leader of the Autobots.”

Megatron was pleased with himself, but June wasn’t impressed. The Vehicon said what happened next and she just stared at the warmonger.

“And he did what?” She asked. “Destroyed the Lock and you can’t fix your planet anymore, yes?”

The grin was still there, but the glint died down. Megatron visibly deflated. He laughed that the Autobots couldn’t run home anymore, but now that he cooled down wasn’t so amused anymore.

“I would never guess that he would do that. If anything I would expect him to simply remove one of the keys, but it seems that I overestimated Primes intelligence. That or he knew something I didn’t. I am sure that we could re-build Cybertron if we would have the Allspark, but that idiot ejected it into space and only he knows the exact direction it went so only he can calculate its course. If there is another way, Alpha Trion will know if I can find him. The ancient lumber knows Cybertron throughout and he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Optimus would never do something without thinking it over. If there is a way of restoring Cybertron...” June paused; she couldn’t tell her captor about Optimus, it was safer if the Prime would remain dead for the Decepticon.

“I know that Prime is alive, you don’t have to hide that. I doubt you know where he was taken to, but sooner or later I will learn of his location. He had to be hurt very, even with all the help he can and all the material he can obtain Ratchet will need time to rebuild Optimus, and getting him fight worthy will take even longer.”

“Ratchet will do it.”

“I have no doubt, but it will take him forever.” Megatron stretched his legs and settled in more relaxed position in his chair. “I believe it is my turn to ask you my question, or rather two.”

June sighed and prepared for whatever wild question her captor would throw at her.

***

Whoever knew Ratchet or at least met him in the past wouldn’t recognise the old, grumpy mech. The medic not only drove with his sirens on (which he sometimes did if he didn’t felt like managing human traffic), not only with his top speed (which he never did) but he was driving like a mad mech. He took all the turns with full speed, he drove uphill only to ride down with a speed that sent him flying like in one of those car chase scenes from some movies. He knew he will be sore, and he didn’t liked the prospect of that but with so much at stake he was ready to face that soreness and anything else that would be the consequence of such driving.

Two police officers stood by their car at the side of a road. They weren’t doing anything important at the minute safe for measuring speed of passing cars and giving speed tickets to their drivers if the situation forced them to do so. They heard the wailing long before they saw anything. It was signal of an ambulance; those two could recognise it easily. Then they saw flashing lights, and one of them decided to measure its speed just because he could. He pointed and pressed the trigger, seconds later the ambulance passed them and the speedometer started to smoke.

Ratchet didn’t even notice that he passed two cops. He was checking his radar – the military base was good 30 minutes away, provided that he would keep his current pace. Luckily enough there was no more towns or other kind of settlements before him.

***

Two men worked on Wheeljack’s doorwing, one was a surgeon and the other one was an engineer, they were discussing his complicated doorwing joint. On a table next to them was a scan of the undamaged one and both men were trying to figure out how to reconstruct the other one. Engineer had a tablet and was sketching a step by step instruction that the doctor commented and pointed his finger at every now and then. Fowler was sure that they will make it without a problem. They started discussing cabling and how to replace damaged parts,

Fowler glanced in the direction of larger crew of various scientists. They were gathered around two large tables. One was occupied by Optimus Prime. No one bothered to even try to repair him; they only patched him where it was necessary. There was large IV drop installed to his energon lines to keep him going, few monitors beeped steadily. Prime was stable for now, but Fowler remembered that just few moments earlier all hell was loose in the large room when everyone was screaming at everyone else while franticly working on barely alive Prime. Now everything settled down, but every single person here knew that they needed Ratchet to do anything else. Optimus was stable for now, but he wouldn’t stay like this for very long.

The other table was full of ‘Nemesis Prime’ impressive form. A large computer screen displayed schematics that M.E.C.H. was kind enough to leave in that crushed silo. Scientists and doctors were deciding how to prepare parts that Ratchet will need. They wanted to dismantle ‘Nemesis Prime’ piece by piece so they would be immediately ready to be used on Optimus. They would learn a lot by doing that, but their main goal was to separate various components without damaging them. They just figured out how ‘unscrew’ both servos and were now trying their luck with pedes.

***

Megatron had one question he really wanted to ask at the moment, the second one he would work out in the meantime. June sighed and he gave her naughty grin.

“What happened to your mate, Jack sire?”

The question was simple as should be the answer. June knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but she decided to start with simple answer and continue only if Megatron would insist.

“Nothing really. He’s still out there somewhere. I’m not even pretending I care. “Her voice was indifferent, she didn’t care anymore. Few years back she would be still angry, some more back she would be crying; now she just didn’t cared. “But you probably want the whole story?”

She looked up at Megatron who just nodded.

“Alright then. I met him back in high school; he was older brother of my boyfriend. We’ve seen each other maybe couple of times before he went to the college but we both knew that we like each other. I broke with his younger brother some time before the school ended.

Then I went to the college myself, I wanted to be a doctor. It was then when I met him again, he was going to be an architect and he just loved designing. We dated for two years before he proposed, the wedding came quickly, and before I knew I was carrying Jack. Everything happened so fast that I never had the chance to actually stop and think or notice just what of a man my husband was. Only when I was in the middle of pregnancy and it was starting to get harder to do things I saw that there was something odd. He was never around, always busy, always running somewhere. I thought that perhaps he’s being nervous about becoming a father so I allowed it slip.

At the end of my pregnancy, when I was very tired and even getting up was a challenge I again noticed that my husband was everywhere but not beside me. He was constantly at work. It thought he was cheating on me, but he really was working. In fact, it was all he seemed to do.” June voice held a distinct echo of her own surprise. “When the time came for Jack it was my mother who drove me to the hospital, my husband was too busy to be bothered by a wife in labour. It took me 28 hours to give birth to Jack because my doctor, that sadistic d!©k, was wild minded enthusiast of everything natural. Can you imagine? 28 hours and my husband only showed himself for like 10 minutes before he had to go back to the office.

After I was released from the hospital and again my mother drove me home my dear husband sat in there looking through his blue prints and all he asked was ‘what took you so long honey?’. I gave Jack to my mother and then threw a fit like never before.

After that my husband seemed to spend even more time working. When he was home he usually complained that Jack cries too much and he can’t get any sleep.” Now there was a lot of bitterness in June’s voice. Her pretty face was focused but Megatron couldn’t tell on what. “I have married a workaholic, a man who couldn’t live without work and who loved only his job. I had no intention to live as a second best thing in his life. I guess I was always the type of a woman who knew what she wanted. At that time I wanted to be back in charge over my own life. So I moved out to my mother’s place. I did it when my husband wasn’t at home, which was more and more often and lasted longer and longer. He only contacted me after three weeks asking where I am, he never asked about Jack.

During pregnancy I had to quit my studies because it was far to taxing for me, so I decided that as soon as possible I will go back to school but first of all I will divorce. I found a lawyer. My husband wanted to put blame on me, because it was me who moved out, but in the judge wouldn’t buy it. He was looking at my husband as if he grew a second head when he explained that he wasn’t with me during labour because he was too busy working. I won, I got everything I wanted from that bastard and I returned to my maiden surname, I also changed Jack’s so he would have mine not his father’s, who never complained about that fact. I became a nurse because it was faster than full medical studies and found a job here in Jasper. After Jack went to high school I returned to medicine. The rest you know.”

“I figured that Jack took most of his personality traces from you.” Megatron was somewhat shocked by the story. On Cybertron finding your better half was a challenge and when one found a partner one cherished what one had. Even nobles. “I also noticed that he inherited all of your physical features.”

“Yes, he looks nothing like his father, who was brown eyed blonde. Jack wasn’t old enough to know why me and his father divorced but he heard stories from my mother, few of my old friends and couple other people. When Jack was old enough his uncle, the one that I broke with, told him what exactly happened and Jack swore never to be like his father.”

“I always found him bright minded youngling, though we’re not exactly friendly toward each other.”

June showed a ghost of a smile. “You know, ten years ago I would cry over that story. Today I don’t care anymore about that bastard and I’m glad that I’m free. I learned the hard way that some people aren’t made for each other, even if they would want to.”

“I never doubted that you are indeed a strong human femme” Megatron allowed himself a little praise over June. It wouldn’t hurt him and could score him few points he could use later.

“Bullshit” that whipped a grin from his lip plates. June didn’t buy any of his praises. “You think that I am primitive, puny human, at best maybe a pet, at worst a pest.”

“No, I do not.” Well maybe a little. Megatron wasn’t human lover, but to his excuse neither some humans were. In fact there were plenty of humans that thought that the rest of their species are nothing more but bunch of noisy, obnoxious scags. “I do appreciate strength when I see it, no matter of the species.”

“I thought you saw humans as pests?” She wouldn’t let it go.

Megatron frowned, this one of those characteristics in humans that reminded him of some Cybertronian politicians: double standards. “I found that many humans think exactly the same and yet you do not judge them.”

“But humans do not try to murder each other on mass scale like you do.” June knew that she made a mistake the moment those words left her mouth. She shouldn’t allow herself to be so easily aggravated.

“Oh, but they do. Should I remind you of your own history yet again? Especially XX-th century wars?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. And we never tried to kill every single human on the planet, and that is what you want to do.” June felt little vein pulsing on her forehead. She was much angrier than she thought she would be. Somehow this particular Decepticon was able to make her losing her nerves like no one else could. It wouldn’t be half as annoying if he wouldn’t be so easy to like. June, to her own dread, discovered that Megatron had magnetic personality and generally, when not trying to kills or piss you off, he was likable. “Just ask your second question already!”

Megatron would smirk but he didn’t want to push June too far. It was amusing how she got all angry and then tried to control herself.

* * *

**Part 12 – Tonight, tonight.**

June watched as Megatron took his sweet time thinking of the question he wanted to as her, she could bet that he was teasing her deliberately. A ghost of a smile touched his metallic lips, there were barely visible dimples in his cheeks, or maybe that was just how the light played tricks with her eyes? His wasn’t a face made to smile or look friendly but clearly he was having good time toying with her. It didn’t look like he was about to leave her alone so she could simply escape. She needed to make him go away and leave her unsupervised or at least go to sleep, or recharge or whatever the hell he did. Perhaps if she would ask him question personal enough he would get irritated and simply walk out? If he wouldn’t squish her first that is. So again, personal but…

“I know what to ask you.” Suspiciously cheerful voice interrupted her thoughts.

“I already dread of what could make you so happy.” Knowing her recent luck, he would ask about bees and birds.

“Oh, don’t be scared. I’m not going ask you anything that you can’t answer me.” He gave her the most ambiguous grin she had ever seen; it was both amusing and scary at the same time.

***

Starscream was leaning heavily against Megatron’s door with empty energon cube in his servo. The Overlord’s quarters weren’t sound proof and he was curious what Leader of the Decepticons could talk about with puny human nurse, so he was now holding empty cube to the doors while keeping his audio receptor firmly pressed to the flat surface of the cube – an old trick when someone wanted to eavesdrop through a wall or doors. Right next to him were Gavin the Pervy Vehicon and Starscream’s very own psycho-fan: Steve.

All three of them were focused squarely on the thick doors. Suddenly a thin arm appeared in their field of vision, it was holding Cybertronian sized stethoscope. The servo moved with almost vegetable slowness, it pressed the head of the stethoscope to metal surface of the door. Three mechs looked at the servo holding the stethoscope, then at the arm, then along the length of the arm and then at Soundwave who wore that stethoscope like it was the most natural and usual thing in the whole universe. The silent mech was absolutely unfazed by the fact that he was:

a) Spying on his Lord;

b) Doing so in front of Starscream and two most notorious Vehicons on the ship;

c) Supposed to be working on New Kaon’s computer systems;

d) Using a stethoscope like some sort of safe-breaker (that perhaps he once was, Starcream wasn’t sure, not anymore).

Starscream and his two faceless companions looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and reassumed their previous task of listening in on their One and True Lord and Master.

***

Megatron opened his mouth to utter his question when suddenly he closed them with slight tap sound and crossed his eyes. June ducked her head between her shoulders not knowing what was happening. Megatron rose from his chair to his impressive height, spun in place and looked at June above his shoulder.

“Do not worry; I just want to check something out.” Then he sauntered to his doors with his usual grace but strangely barely making any sound at all. June had trouble believing that something, someone so big, so heavy was able to sneak like that.

Megatron stood for a moment looking at the door, then sent command for the door to open. The view was truly amusing. It seemed that everything happened in slow motion when two Vehicons (and grounders) felt on the floor in undignified heap, followed by none less than Starscream holding empty energon cube (Megatron knew that trick, he used it quite often in his own time). Then there was Soundwave standing motionless with one arm stretched and holding stethoscope in the place where the door was. The spy didn’t move a millimetre.

“L-lord Megatron” Starscream rose to his pedes. “I… We were just walking pass...”

“And you just finished your energon?” Megatron added helpfully with fake innocence.

“Yes, yes, I just finished it… and…” Starscream was old and experienced enough to know when to give up. He’d been caught red handed. “Scrap.”

“Yes, indeed.” Megatron glanced at two Vehicons still laying at his pedes. He took a better look at them; both wore an air that indicated that if they could they would be smiling stupidly.

Soundwave wasn’t a surprise; Megatron knew that he was spying always, everywhere and on everyone. He would probably try to spy on Unicron; actually he kind of did since he was able to send him that Ground Bridge when he and the Autobots were fighting the Unmaker.

“And now BACK TO WORK!” With this Megatron kicked Vehicons out and shut down the door. After a second he opened it only to find all four mechs still there just like they were merely second ago. “And get out of my sight; if I’ll catch any of you in front of my quarters without good excuse I will excuse them permanently!” And slammed the door shut again.

He walk back to the desk, sat down and vented a sight to steady himself. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, the question. Tell me June, this isn’t unusual among your kind to take another mate after your first one died or left so why didn’t you took another mate?”

June blinked; she just saw how Megatron deals with his army. It was complete opposite of what Optimus would do. Then again none of the Autobots would try to eavesdrop on him. Miko and perhaps Smokescreen would try, but Ratchet would catch them in time. In a sense Megatron was excused, no one liked to be spied upon. But the most shocking was just how quickly Megatron calmed. Or did he? Maybe he never was as angry as he showed? Maybe he just wanted to scare his mechs away and be done with it? It was possible.

“Femme! Do you even listen to what I say?”

June smiled her best apologetic smile. “Sorry, it was just funny sight, those four.” Can you repeat your question, I’m afraid I didn’t get it.”

“Why haven’t you took another mate? It is not uncommon in your society.”

That was a question her mother and most friends always asked her. They always told her that she was still young and attractive, and shouldn’t have any trouble finding herself boyfriend. She always heard that she was still little heartbreaker. And men did notice her, but she just never allowed herself any long term relationship. Was she afraid of commitment? Or perhaps she was scared that she will end up with another workaholic?

“My mother always asks me that. To be honest I don’t have an answer, there were many reasons.” She hugged herself not knowing if she wouldn’t regret her answer later. “At first Jack was just too little and I had many duties and worries. I was freshly divorced and frankly mad at all men. Later I worked hard to gain experience and position in the hospital and Jack was still a baby. When he went to school I went to few dates, but it wasn’t anything I expected and I guess I still held a grudge against men that was interested in me. Then Jack started growing up and I was constantly worried that he will get himself into trouble. I spent three last years trying to pound reason into his head and finally I see effects. But I am mother to teenage boy, that doesn’t bind well with dating.”

“And if you would found a man for yourself?”

“He would have to accept that I have an adolescent son and trust issues.”

“Not very demanding thing to accept.” Megatron regarded June. That was one unlucky femme who managed well in given circumstances. She was a survivor, like majority of Decepticons.

“Maybe for you.” The woman’s voice suddenly filled with bitterness. “I simply never had bad luck with men. Better play safe and don’t risk.”

“Bad luck indeed you had.” That much was obvious. “But your ‘husband’ wasn’t the brightest star in the Galaxy if he left such a strong femme; other had to be blind too. I rarely pray compliments, and I especially never before did so to a puny organic, but you have impressive strength of character.”

June gave Megatron disbelieving look and then laughed with sonorous laugh. “It is that ‘strength’ that chases all men away.” Seeing confusion on her captor’s face plates she quickly explained. “Human men aren’t big on strong and independent women. There are exceptions naturally, but most of them are scared of women who are able to make it without them. They feel demasculinizited by women more successful than them. I blame the society and history. In most cultures women were bred to be submissive, obedient and devoted to their men, mannered to never object, be always polite and, God forbid, never make their men look stupid by showing their own intellect. As a result men grew wart od women who show that they have more brain than a goose.”

Megatron smirked, then grinned and then smiled with wide smile that promised no good. “We Cybertronians are also very protective of our femmes, most perished during the war along with countless mechs, but the time proved that they aren’t by any means lesser than mechs.”

“Yeah, I met Airachnid and know Arcee.”

“Then you see my point, and those two aren’t even the toughest femmes in existence, but that is the story for another occasion.” Megatron relaxed a little in his chair. “Now it is your turn to ask me a question.”

June hesitated for a split second but she didn’t have to think hard about the question, she literally had it before her face when she looked at Megatron. She figured the question when she was observing Megatron various facial expressions.

“Megatron, what happened to your face? How it happened that you have all those scars?”

It wasn’t uncommon question for the warmonger to hear; at least it wasn’t uncommon long ago when those scares were fresh. Later everybody got used to them and after a while scarred face become so natural for him that whenever he saw his old recording when his face was still smooth he felt awkward, like watching someone else. Megatron wondered how come she knew that those were scars, but he guessed that if no other ‘Bot or ‘Con had similar welding on his face plates it was safe to assume that they weren’t normal, and then there was Wheeljack with scarred face, though his scares were different they indicated that Cybertronians do have scars. In the end, it was legitimate question.

“It was shortly after the war has started. “ He has begun. “Everybody still thought that it will be intense but short conflict, there was no reason to assume differently. Both sides hoped to win. Zeta Prime was dead for some time and Orion Pax just returned from the core, freshly reformed into Optimus Prime, still inexperienced and vulnerable. I was seasoned warrior, had my experience with tactics and strategy, knew how to lead an army. Prime was full of ideals and had Matrix to help but even his fellow Autobots were full of doubt. That brawl proved everyone that Prime while inexperienced has a talent for leadership after all, that lesson was hardest for me.

It was one of those minor fights that when mentioned in historical files don’t even have names and are described as skirmishes and it looked silly when it begun. Me and few of my mechs met Prime and few of his mechs, we saw each other, we yelled few insults at each other, the usual. We drew our blades and Autobots drew theirs, we wanted to end this quickly because the place where we met was old energon refinery that was closed before the war but still was full of flammable fumes. Fighting in such places was always hazardous and no one in their right mind wanted to be there if the fumes would ignite.”

“That’s why you used your swords?” June had the displeasure of seeing people burned by flaming gasoline fumes, they usually died in pain. She knew that even a small spark could cause them to ignite.

“Yes, though we dried to minimize the danger of setting the fumes on fire we still had to fend ourselves against our enemy and that meant fight. After few blows and couple of insults we parted, I ordered retreat because there was nothing to gain and the refinery wasn’t even our goal, we were just passing it as a short cut. And so we started to retreat, Prime and his morons were close to the window and we headed in opposite direction to reach exit on the ground level. That’s when one of Prime’s imbeciles activated his gun and shot.

Later I learned that the blast threw them out the window and the worst they suffered from was some glass falling on them. I and my troops weren’t as lucky.” Megatron reached and touched his face plates where the scares were. “And I was the least lucky of them all. Soundwave, Shockwave, Skyquake, Blitzwing and I were sent flying into big, empty energon tank made of glass, stainless steel and aluminium.

Soundwave lost his entire paintjob, he was peeled clean to his bare metal and his visor’s glass shattered cutting his faceplates, but he was the luckiest of us all, he ended with few barely visible scares on his face. Shockwave spent decacycle in stasis, lost his canon and most of his armour had to be replaced but in the end he gained newer, better canon, armour upgrade and dislike of explosions. Blitzwing underwent several surgical operations, some of his armour had to be replaced, his both legs had to be replaced but the worse injury caused him to develop something between split personality and mood swings. It’s not real split personality because he remembers everything but it’s more than mood swings; his temperament changes few times a cycle depending on situation and his mood. He has three: cool and composed, vehement and completely loony. We call them ‘Icy’, ‘Hothead’ and ‘Random’.”

“And you?”

“I was lucky to survive. It was then when I met Knockout actually, he was what you would call plastic surgeon and orthopaedist. He just finished training and his specialisation included frame struts and external covers surgery.” Megatron smirked wickedly. “Of course I only met him after I regained consciousness, but he was exactly the way he in now. I believe he’s the only Cybertronian whose personality wasn’t affected by the war. He was just as vain, self-centred and insufferable brat as he is today, only now his paintjob is better than it was back then.”

“So what happened to you?” June did her best to hide her disappointment that Megatron didn’t have irritated with personal question and left, or decided to end the discussion.

“I wish I knew, when they recovered us, and that was thanks to Soundwave who called for help, they sent me to the nearest Decepticon medical point. Knockout’s report indicated that my head struts were broken and that only the fact that I had thick helm saved my life. I read the medical report and learned that they had to take my facial plating clean off and replace most of my head struts, my CPU and hard drive structures were intact thank to my helm but optics, facial hydraulics and neural nets were crushed. Basically everything that wasn’t covered with helm” Megatron tapped his helm with one claw “was scrapped true and well. They even wanted to replace my face plates but Knockout threw a fit and persisted that he can save my original face.”

“But why?” June was now puzzled. She thought that back then spare parts weren’t a problem. “You would have new, unscarred face? Why insist to save old one that would have to be wielded?”

“It’s not that easy. Facial plates are parts of protoform, and just like with T-Cogs it is impossible to just build new one just like that. In order to perform surgery on my face’s internal working they had to peel my facial plated off but that required cutting it in few places because living metal of protoform has its limitation when it goes to stretching. If they had to replace my facial plate with artificial replacement I would end up with plates that would not move, an unanimated mask, just like the ones that Vehicons use.” Megatron gestured around his face. “Cybertronians have protoforms made of living metal that is very similar to your skin; that is covered with armour plating. Armour plates include helms, that in few cases can be removed freely, and body plates; every part of armour is equipped with receptors, just as protoform is; because armour can’t be easily removed and we have to done it all the time. Facial plates unlike most of the protoform are uncovered and vulnerable to all kinds of injuries, but protoform heals better than normal armour, except it is more prone to develop scars. Knockout managed to reattach my facial plating to its place but had to wield the surgical cuts and explosion tearing. The results are visible on my face, but it could be much worse. In the end I was very pleased with Knockout’s decision and offered him place in my inner circle.”

June nodded and yawned suddenly feeling all those hours and stress of passed day heavily on her head. She hoped to tire Megatron but in the end it was her who was close to pass out. She was irritated by that but couldn’t help a wave of sleepiness. She snapped her eyes open aware of the fact that she didn’t even noticed when they closed. She blinked and shook her head to chase drowsiness away. It helped for a moment.

“You look tired.” Megatron’s voice was quieter than before. “Rest now; there is nothing I require of you for the moment.”

June wanted to resist, but the temptation was too strong to resist. She covered herself with blanked and drifted away into dreamless sleep.

Megatron watched her for a moment and left his quarters with slight smile on his faceplates.

* * *

**Part 13 – Pure Morning.**

Ratchet was flying. Not by his own, but in a plane. He was strapped in his alt mode in cargo plane and couldn’t help but fidget a little. Ironically he was moving much faster than he would on his own four wheels, but he had to fight the urge to drive. There was this force that just like gravity pulled his to his Prime. And to Wheeljack. No mater how rouge the ex-wrecker was, he didn’t left them in their moment of need, he came and fought, and he went down for them even if Ratchet called him worse names, even if everyone were mad at him. A true friend, true companion.

Tiny human female entered back of the aircraft. She wore BDU’s but she looked almost too small to be a soldier, at least to ratchet. Then again Arcee was the smallest of them all and was fierce warrior. The miniature woman came close to him and placed on his driver’s door, the mech tensed not knowing what she wanted.

“You should try to relax.” Her voice was surprisingly low. “Perhaps get some sleep.”

Ratchet huffed annoyed with the woman. “How do you know I am not relaxed?”

She smiled and stroked his door like a mother would stroke distressed child head. This only annoyed Ratchet more. “Your wheels are moving constantly.”

“Well forgive me for being worried about my oldest friend.”

“Worrying won’t get you anywhere. Trust me, I’ve been there.” Her dark eyes showed understanding. “You need to rest now. You won’t help anyone if be you’ll half asleep. To help others you must first take care of yourself.” All she got in reply was grunt of annoyance. “You must rest so when we reach our destination you will be ready to act. You know I am right.”

And he knew she was. He had terrible habit of denying himself and everyone, Optimus especially, always repeated him that he needs to recharge, refuel and take care of himself on order to function properly. But he never listened. He rarely got full night recharge. Almost never refuelled on time and always only part of his ration and never got proper scanning because he was too busy to allow anyone to do it for him. His paintjob marked by chipped of fragments and blemish, even his grill was mate. But he never had the time. He was the only medic. And now that the strange human woman told him that he needed rest he noticed just how tired he was.

“Take a nap; we will wake you when we’ll reach our destination.”

Ratchet didn’t answer as he floated into recharge.

Outside the eastern skies started to lighten with incoming dawn.

***

Jack watched night skies, soon it would be morning and he couldn’t sleep anymore worried sick about his mother. Next to him Arcee snored static; Jack would never suspect that Arcee could snore so loud. He knew that he himself snored, he knew for a fact that Raf and Miko snored (and boy how loud those two were, like sawmill). Ratchet didn’t snore, but Bumblebee whistled slightly and Bulkhead had a habit of murmuring and talking while he slept, though he spoke Cybertronian then. Wheeljack sounded like radio set to white noise and Optimus always woke when he snored loudly. Even his mother snored, though lightly and only sometimes.

He sat, funny what man’s mind did to save him from grim thoughts? He just analysed various styles of snoring so he wouldn’t think about the fact that his mother was in clutches of a monster that who knew what was doing to her.

Arcee murmured something Cybertronian; it was but a few clicks and whirr. Jack quietly checked his e-mail but there was nothing in there safe for few advertises. He was ready to just cry, his mother was everything he had in his life. His father was somewhere out there and didn’t care as long as no one pestered him. If something would happen he would be all alone. And he couldn’t do a thing.

***

Wheeljack still felt those tiny organic servos in his doorwings’ inner working. He knew it was for his benefit, he knew that they helped him, he knew that they did good job and pit, he was grateful. But it felt creepy. All those tiny-winy digits creeping around his wires and inner structures, and he were well awake because they wanted to know if he felt any difference and how much his sensors were damaged. And they fixed him well, he was surprised that they did so, but then again, Cybertronian anatomy and physiology wasn’t even half as complicated as human. They just dipped their hands in and started to work, it was something new for Wheeljack. Any Cybertronian doctor would have to use tools to work because those wires were just so small and thin and that’s why doorwings were considered such a delicate part of anatomy. But humans were small themselves and for them all the inner working was just normal sized, it was no big deal for them. Wheeljack guessed that all was relative.

Now he sat on his berth while engineers and doctors were monitoring his parameters, they insisted that because he had a crash he should be watched for any hidden injuries that he might have obtain. He wanted to do something, rescue Nurse Darby, or look for the team or even just drive, find some Vehicons and send them to Megatron in tiny little pieces. But he was grounded and had no way of sneaking out, besides they were to wait until morning to see what Megatron would do. He didn’t like the idea, in fact no one did, but what else could they do?

He glanced at the Prime laid on the next berth, still form looking like an empty shell of Nemesis Prime that was just next to, only the faintest murmur of engine distinguishing the living mech from empty shell. The Prime was alive but only barely, and the state he was in made Wheeljack send thanking to Primus for keeping the leader unconscious, otherwise Optimus would probably scream and cry in pain.

Wheeljack checked his internal chronometer, he was informed when aircraft with Ratchet left the military airport and now he tried to estimate how long will it take for it to arrive. He would gladly endure all of Ratchet’s grumpiness and crankiness as long as the medic would come already.

***

Megatron entered the bridge. The night shift looked spent but was still had few more cycles of duty. Somewhere in the background the lanky form of Soundwave melted with deep shadows. The TIC was still typing but his pace slower than normally and he swayed every now and then. One of the Vehicons yawned loudly, but it was impossible to deter which one of them did that and Megatron didn’t even though that he would punish the mech that yawned – it was ungodly cycle. He was only up because of his prisoner, one that was sound asleep already.

“Soundwave. How long you’re on duty already?” Megatron observed with slight amusement that his oldest follower almost jumped upon hearing his voice.

The spy displayed few glyphs on his visor for Megatron. Despite the fact that his face was invisible it was clear that he was barely awake and manage to stand straight only because he blocked his joints.

“For the love of the Allspark, Soundwave, not even Shockwave stays awake for that long. Go to your quarters and I don’t want to see you until you have a full recharge. I need my officers sane and with working central units.”

In reply Soundwave displayed picture of Starscream during one of his hissy fits. The seeker crossed his optics and looked like an organic that just jumped porcupine – image of ultimate lunacy.

“Don’t be such a wise aft, in his case insanity is natural state of mind. Now go to rest, you don’t get much work done anyway and tomorrow you’ll continue. Your workstation won’t elope anywhere.” Megatron watched Soundwave as the silent mech walked away, only trained optic that knew the spy long enough would notice slight wobble to his steps.

“Now, which one of you is the shift’s commander?” The Overlord watched worn looking air based Vehicon standing from his seat and facing him. It was old one, he had many scars and his paint job was in a state that would make Knockout throw a fit.

“Sargent R4-0U7 at your command, my Liege” Answered the Vehicon due to an old protocol that no one followed anymore. His voice was soft, almost purring, quite unusual for his kind. Megatron mused that this one has to be indeed old one, he still used five character designation and one with digit in the first part too, one of the earliest series. The Warlord quickly rolled the designation on his glossa couple of times, Vehicons tended for some odd reason to twist their designation to match human names. Perhaps they thought it’s cool?

“Did Starscream dispatch sentries to watch the place where he took the human femme from?”

“No, Lord Megatron.” Answered Sargent Raoul. “But he ordered patrols to keep close look at the neighbourhood.” He added quickly before Megatron had a chance to get mad. “There is undesirable human element of the thief’s sort in vicinity.”

Megatron gave Sargent Raoul another look. It was one of them – he thought – the lot of thinking that developing unique traits will grand them long and prosperous functioning. There was something in that belief though, Vehicons that developed original enough quirks tended to live a lot longer than those who didn’t. The best examples were Steve and Gavin. Raoul seemed to adopt different approach and acted as perfect genlemech, one of those old time cavaliers with fancy vocabulary and perfect manners. Strange thing for a Sargent but it fitted him well.

“Good. You will send two technicians to the place…” The Decepticon leader started to explain what he needed to be done. He didn’t expect it to bring much gain, but it didn’t hurt either.

***

Special Agent William Fowler sat on plastic chair in mess hall and doze. His chin rested on his chest while his arms were crossed, the man seemed fall asleep while waiting for the morning to come. No one bothered the man, the base personnel was accustomed to the fact that people dozed off in random places, they usually were dead tired and waking them up usually ended with shouting. One had to have really good reason to bother someone sleeping.

A young man ran into the mess hall. He looked unhealthily excited. He quickly localised the sleeping man and jogged to him as if he was ready to lay an egg. He shook Fowler’s arm until the man woke with startled “I’m awake!”

“Agent Fowler, sir! You won’t believe!” The young man’s voice was just as jiggery as the rest of him.

“You’re damn right, son, I don’t believe.” Barked Fowler, he wasn’t mad at the noisy guy, but he didn’t appreciated being waked like that.

“Sir, you have a call, and you won’t believe who’s waiting on the other side of the line.”

Fowler yawned and got up. Whoever that was, it better be important.

* * *

Author’s note.

In previous chapter I used phrase “vegetable slowness” that I knew from somewhere but couldn’t remember where. I did some research and found that it came from ‘Pyramids” by Terry Pratchett. I highly recommend the “Discworld” series, it’s great.

* * *

**Part 14 – Red Morning Light.**

Two F-16 flew above Jasper suburban area in the same moment that black military helicopter landed in the middle of the street. Rising sun’s rays painted abandoned houses pink, while long morning shadows crept on the ground.

Fowler jumped out the chopper not knowing if he should be angry or scared. Maybe both. His usual irritation hasn’t had any use today. His interlocutor didn’t say what he wanted but he demanded presence of ‘Agent Fowler’ in person, in front of ‘Darby’s household’ and on top of everything ‘as soon as possible’. Now that Fowler saw who wanted his presence, he added fear to his anger.

There, just next to the house stood two Decepticons: Megatron and Starscream. The seriousness of the scene was damaged by the fact that Starscream looked only half awake, but Megatron hold his usual stature.

Fowler gathered his wits and refused to show any sight of fear. “You have some nerve! It’s so early that for some it’s still late!”

Starscream gave Fowler grim glare that said clearly as words that while he despises the man above anything else, he agrees with his statement.

“Ah, Agent Fowler in his charming self.” Megatron carefully ignored Fowler’s outburst. “It’s is pleasure to see you in this fine morning.”

“I know that you have Nurse Darby, so unless you want to negotiate her release, then we have nothing to speak about.” Fowler didn’t want to be there longer than necessary.

“First things first, Agent Fowler. “Megatron smirked with clear superiority. “I, in turn, know that you have Prime and suspect that he is alive. Before you will say anything, I’m not expecting you to agree to handle him even if I would want to exchange lovely Mrs Darby for him. I know that your country do not negotiate with ‘terrorists’. I only require that you confirm his state.”

“You summoned me here just for that!”

“No, but before anything else will happen I wish to simply know state of my old enemy.”

Fowler considered few possible answers, most of which consisted of human’s personal opinions about Megatron’s mother and her professional occupation. He also thought about what Decepticons would gain from knowledge of Optimus Prime’s state. Would it be better if they thought that he was dead? Or it would only make things worse? Would knowledge of Prime’s demise made them bolder? Would the fact that Prime was alive forced them to be more careful with their actions? Would they search for him and try to kill him when he was most vulnerable?

“Yeah, he’s still alive and kickin’.” Fowler settled with half-truth. “He’s rather bruised, few broken… whatever you have instead of bones and he got few burned areas, but other than that he’s peachy.”

“Strange.” Megatron pondered mockingly. “Because I have reports stating that he was seen in being transported by your air vehicles looking more dead than alive…”

“Those reports were invalid. “Fowler decided to keep to his version. “Though, he does look ten times worse than he really is. Probably because his paint job is all gone.”

Megatron rose single optic brow. He didn’t buy Fowler’s story, but he had no way of proving that the human lied. Besides, with his luck the Prime would be in much better condition than what he could see on Laserbeak’s video.

“Let’s pretend that I believe you.” Megatron boomed with new enthusiasm in his voice. “You were speaking about Nurse Darby. She’s inside, sleeping in near to the house’s entrance. I’m afraid that I couldn’t place her in any appropriate sleeping area without ripping the roof of.” The Warlord observed how Fowler’s face changed from anger to astonishment. “The poor thing fell asleep during our little chat and I haven’t had spark to wake her…”

“Bullshit!” Fowler’s head looked ready to explode. “Better tell me what have you done to her? What kind of torture…”

“Enough!” Megatron barked with anger. “We talked, I was curious if she has any vital information, and wanted to know just what kind of a female brought young Jack Darby to resemble Prime in so many ways. And I learned what I could. But the poor femme was too tired. I won’t learn much more from her, and there is no point in keeping her. You may collect her and take her to her son.”

“I still don’t believe that you just handle her back just like that.”

“Believe what you like, Special Agent William Fowler. You may ask her what happened when she wakes. For now I leave her under your care. “Megatron gave Fowler wicked grin. “I expect you to take her to safety, I still hold interest in her and I may want to speak with her in the future.”

With that Megatron jumped, he hovered using anti-gravity generators as he transformed and then he simply basted to the air with Starscream following closely behind his master.

Fowler looked at them for a second. Silent shuffle caught his attention; in the broken door looking rather groggy stood June Darby. Fowler gave her closer look and his jaw dropped. She wore half transparent blouse with cute looking bra underneath.

“What in the name of Uncle Sam happened to you?”

“They caught me when I was trying to find my hair dryer. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on our way, just let me grab my hoodie and bags.”

Fowler picked his jaw and headed to his helicopter. This was weird. This was some wicked story belonging to the X-files or perhaps Twilight Zone or something like that.

***

It was cloudy, lead skies hung low and the wind tousled tree tops, their leaves rustled quietly. The air held promise of a rain. It wasn’t cold, but chilly wing and humidity in the air made it feel unpleasant. The rain would start to fall any minute now.

The cemetery was empty except for two people standing in front of white marble crypt with two weeping angels standing guard on both sides of heavy cast iron doors. It was typical old English cemetery, different from American ones. Old graves overgrow with algae tarnish that no one took care anymore mixed with newer ones or those that still had relatives who would visit them. And few large crypts belonging to wealthy or noble families.

The crypt had family name engraved over the entrance: “Westerna”*). The man looked at the letters and then at the doors. He was tall with wide shoulders and narrow waist, his short black hair were shaved in typical American military style. His face was grim with clenched square jaw and narrowed steel grey eyes. His entire stance betrayed that he usually wore military uniform. And probably some sort of goggles or sun glasses.

The woman was much shorter than the man; she only reached to his shoulder. Her light blonde hair was wavy and long. On the first sight she was beautiful, but after taking closer look there was something hardened in her face. Obsidian eyes were not glowing with life but were dull, like someone who saw too much suffering. Full lips were thin with barely refrained fury. Thin eyebrows furrowed. Hands clenched into fists with such force that her knuckles were white.

First drops of rain started to mark graves; the man took out big black umbrella, few seconds later the rain turned into true wall of water.

“I knew my father was up to something, but I never dreamed that he would end this way.” The woman’s voice was low; it was deep and could even have erotic timbre if she would care enough. “Remind me how did you managed to find him?”

“After his accident we installed a tracking device in his body, but he vanished for few days after he broke free from his base. We’re not sure what he planned but he killed his crew…”

“And his signal re-appeared few days later only for you to find his tortured body?”

“Dissected, to be more precise. And he was still alive, but he died few minutes after we got him to one of our mobile infirmaries.”

The woman gave the man dark look. Then she took deep breath.

“And you say it was those ‘Decepticons’ that did it to him?” The man gave short nod and she turned to look into the distance. “Thanks you for returning his body to me. I know that he was an American, but my mother wouldn’t have it any other way. I told her that he had accident when he was piloting a helicopter, I don’t want her to know about all his enterprises. The question is what do you want from me? What is the price for what you did?”

The man smiled, and it was charming smile. “Colonel Bishop left us very precise instructions to follow in case of his demise. You’re engineer, weapon designer as your father wished you to be. He had plans for you, but he waited for you to start your own career first, he wanted you to gain experience that’s why he didn’t contact you earlier, but he planned to do it shortly. He never managed but now I am doing it in his name. Please read this.”

The yellow envelope was almost empty. The woman read contents slowly; they were personal file and short letter. She started with personal file – a military file with some additional paramilitary notes. Then she read short letter.

“Dear Laura.

The man that gave you this is, or rather was one of my field commanders, if he’s with you now it means that he is now acting commander of the entire organisation that I once led.

I made sure that you would be competent to take my place one day and so the day that I prepared you for finally came. I don’t know how I died, but now that the work of my life is now yours. Listen to the man that gave you this envelope, he will be your second in command and trusted advisor.

Do as I taught you and throw this world to its knees, and if you can’t have it, made sure that nobody else will.

Your father – Leland.”

The woman – Laura**) – gave the man quizzical look. She knew her father was involved in what would be called terrorist activity, but she never even suspected that he would try to “take over the world” for her it was abstract idea taken from some Bond movies. And now she was the one to follow her father’s twisted ideas?

“What is your name anyway?”

“We do not use names Miss Westerna-Bishop, we operate in deep cover for the safety measures as many of us are still in active duty. You may call me Ripley***).”

“And my father used pseudonym ‘Silas’?”

“Yes. Do you accept his last will?”

It was clear to her that refusal would mean instant extinction; her father was strict man who would not spare his own offspring if he had to. And his only child was very much like him. Besides, she started to like the idea of leading paramilitary organisation, her father indeed taught her military ways and she was accustomed to military drill (much to her own mother dismay).

“Why not? Should I pick my own pseudo now?”

“It would be for the best if you would ma’am.”

“My father was ‘Silas’, so in order to follow his legacy I should be ‘Silia’ don’t you think?”

“Yes ma’am, it would also be beneficial for you to get rid of your accent, it will be easily recognised. Now, if you would follow me, we have much to do.” Ripley gestured in general direction of cemetery gate.

“Yes. First of all I want to get my hands on those responsible for the way that my father died. Those files stated that he wanted to use their technology to gain advantage over NATO and subdue UN Organisation.” She allowed herself to be led by her new SIC. “We could kill two sparrows with one stone. We can gain their technology AND avenge my father’s death at the same time.”

“Indeed. How do you plan to do it?”

“I was working on a weapon that we could build, it was meant to be used to dismantle tanks with just one well aimed shot…”

* * *

TBC

* * *

*) Dracula anyone? I needed nice name and I thought of Lucy Westerna. It will be the name of Silas’ wife, if I will use her name (I didn’t decided yet).

**) Laura’s name is taken from Twin Peaks. Laura Palmer is daughter of Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks. Laura Westerna-Bishop is daughter of Leland Bishop. Only Leland Bishop isn’t under influence of Bob.

***) Ripley’s pseudonym is taken from Alien series. Why? How? Simple. In the second film Helen Ripley meets Bishop.

And so we now have point where we can hook the continuation – M.E.C.H. will return and start entire new adventure where both Autobots and Decepticons will have their interest in making sure that the organisation won’t succeed.

* * *

The story title comes from song and the leading quote of the fic comes from song entitled “Would you love a monster-man” by Lordi.

First chapter title is direct reference to the last episode of the second season of the TF: Prime.

The second and fourth chapter’s titles have no reference.

Titles of the following chapters are titles of songs:

3rd chapter’s title – “Darkness Falls” by Graeme Revel comes from ‘Pitch Black” OST.

5th chapter’s title – “Moonlight Shadow” by Mike Oldfield.

6th chapter’s title – “Dark Side of the Moon” is title of Pink Floyd album.

7th chapter’s title – “Fear of the Dark” by Iron Maiden.

8th chapter’s title – “Creatures of the Night” by KISS.

9th chapter’s title – “They Only Come out at Night” by Lordi.

10th chapter’s title – “Queen of the Night” by Whitney Huston.

11th chapter’s title – “Midnight Summer Dream” by The Stranglers.

12th chapter’s title – “Tonight, Tonight” by Smashing Pumpkins.

13th chapter’s title – “Pure Morning” by Placebo.

14th chapter’s title – “Red Morning Light” by Kings of Leon.

Those songs are not theme songs for their respective chapters, they just have fitting titles but you may listen to them – especially those of you that are younger than 25 (there’s some real quality music here, though Lordi and KISS may be too heavy for some of you).

See you soon with Bumblebee and Miko’s attempt at romantic date XD.

**Author's Note:**

> The cover image was made by me.  
> The disclaimer in the story includes the image as well.


End file.
